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Noli Me Tángere

42 pages • 1 hour read

Noli Me Tángere (Touch Me Not)

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Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-6

Chapters 7-12

Chapters 13-18

Chapters 19-24

Chapters 25-30

Chapters 31-36

Chapters 37-42

Chapters 43-48

Chapters 49-54

Chapters 55-60

Chapters 61-63

Character Analysis

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Summary and Study Guide

Noli Me Tángere (1887)—which translates to “Touch Me Not” in Latin—is a novel written by Filipino writer José Rizal. The novel tells the story of Don Crisóstomo Ibarra , a young man of Filipino and Spanish descent who returns to the Philippines after a seven-year trip to Europe. Upon his return, and because he is now old enough to better understand the world, Ibarra sees the oppression wrought on the Indigenous population by Spanish colonialism. As Ibarra attempts to do something about this, he finds himself confronting forces that view him as a direct threat to their power—and who will do whatever it takes to retain it.

Noli Me Tángere is predominantly narrated in the third person, with occasional shifts to first-person plural. The narrative follows a generally linear plot with occasional shifts that provide historical context . It also tends toward the satirical, especially when the narrator describes members of the wealthy ruling class. At times, the novel depicts the brutality of oppression realistically, hence it is sometimes graphic.

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This guide is based on the Kindle edition of the novel, translated by Harold Augenbraum and published by Penguin Books in 2006.

Content warning: This guide contains references to violence, which is depicted in the source text. 

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Plot Summary

Noli Me Tángere begins at a dinner party hosted by Captain Don Santiago (Tiago), a wealthy resident of Manila. Guests assembled at the party include other members of the upper class as well as friars of both the Dominican and Franciscan orders. During dinner, Don Crisóstomo Ibarra arrives—the party being his first stop post-returning from Europe. He is there to visit his fiancée María-Clara , Santiago’s daughter. However, the celebratory atmosphere soon turns tense as one of the friars, Father Dámaso , becomes angry at Ibarra’s arrival. After the party, Ibarra learns that his father, Don Rafael, died while in prison and Father Dámaso had his corpse exhumed and removed from the Christian cemetery (i.e., dumped into a river). The dramatic tension between Ibarra and Dámaso forms the central conflict.

As Ibarra reacclimates himself to his homeland, he looks to apply his progressive ideals to make life better for the citizens of San Diego. After meeting with a school teacher, Ibarra’s first act is to build a school. While he gains support from the local government, the religious order within the town views the project with suspicion. They begin to see Ibarra as a threat to their power—with Dámaso in particular seeing him as a rival who must be put in his place.

Ibarra and María-Clara’s relationship dates back to childhood. However, Dámaso is the godfather of María-Clara and opposes the marriage. He wishes to drive the two apart and eventually achieves. He arrives uninvited to a dinner party hosted by Ibarra and dishonors the memory of his late father, which baits the latter into retaliation. Ibarra physically attacks Dámaso, holding him at knife point and threatening to kill him. María-Clara intervenes and prevents Ibarra from completing the deed, but the damage is done. As punishment for the assault, Ibarra is excommunicated and thus, the couple’s engagement is annulled.

The Captain General, the King’s representative in the Philippines, intercedes on Ibarra’s behalf. Once again, Dámaso and his colleague Father Salví are disgruntled and see the Captain General’s respect for Ibarra as a threat to their power. Salví’s role in the novel becomes more prominent after this incident, as he works on a scheme to take down Ibarra once and for all.

Ibarra befriends Elías , a fellow Filipino who is involved with a subversive group planning an uprising. Because Elías is knowledgeable of the town’s underground, he is able to warn Ibarra of the attempts to have him framed and killed. Their friendship is unusual as they are not of the same class, but they have mutual respect for each other—and this respect enables them to strengthen their alliance.

Through no fault of his own, Ibarra’s life is turned upside down by the same forces that claimed the life of his father. As the novel comes to a close, the progress that Ibarra advocated for is put on hold. However, Dámaso suffers a private defeat as María-Clara holds a secret against him, one that would destroy his reputation in town. Dámaso is eventually moved out of San Diego and with him out of the way, the possibility of reform is made more possible than ever.

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Noli Me Tangere

By josé rizal.

• Noli Me Tangere Summary

Juan Crisóstomo Ibarra y Magsalin, commonly referred to as Ibarra, has been studying in Europe for the past seven years, though he is a mestizo Filipino. As he arrives back in the Philippines, his friend, a prominent man named Captain Tiago, hosts a reunion dinner. Ibarra had been in Europe for such a long time that he doesn’t know what has been going on in the country. At dinner, Father Dámaso, who Ibarra thought was friends with his father, treats him badly, which surprises Ibarra.

As Ibarra is walking home from the dinner, another family friend, Señor Guevara, follows him and tells him that Ibarra’s father died in prison after a campaign of slander against him, and that Father Dámaso had a hand in his death. Father Dámaso had accused the elder Ibarra of not going to confession, and after Rafael Ibarra inadvertently killed a man who beat a young boy, he was imprisoned and attacked with accusations of subversion and heresy. Guevara tried to clear his name, but he died in prison before he could be freed. The younger Ibarra is shocked, but unsure of what to do. He goes to visit his old lover, Maria Clara, but as Maria mentions Ibarra’s family, Ibarra is put off.

Instead of seeking revenge, Ibarra tries to follow his father’s footsteps of peace. After meeting with a schoolmaster who knew his father, he plans on establishing a public school to help his hometown. Yet the schoolmaster warns him that Father Dámaso meddles in the school system, preventing students from learning Spanish and demanding that he beat the students. Ibarra pitches the idea of the school to town officials, pretending that he wants to work with them on it, and they agree.

Meanwhile, two young boys, Crispín and Basilio, work as sextons to support their impoverished mother, Sisa, who is abused by their father. When Crispín is falsely accused of theft, the brothers must work even more. When he protests, Crispín is severely beaten, while Basilio escapes. He returns the next day to look for his brother, but can't find him. Sisa looks for both her sons, losing her mind as she wanders the area in search of them.

Ibarra goes to his father’s grave, seeking peace. He is shocked to discover that his father’s corpse was removed and supposedly put into a Chinese cemetery at the order of the town's curate—Father Dámaso.

During the town's festivities, Ibarra and the officials plan to celebrate the new school, hoping to bless it after a sermon by Father Dámaso. During the sermon, a mysterious man named Elías approaches Ibarra, warning him of a plot to kill him. Elías had been the boatman on an earlier excursion Ibarra took with friends, but after the excursion, Ibarra discovered he was a wanted fugitive.

That night, Father Dámaso invites himself to a dinner Ibarra is hosting. He insults both indigenous Filipinos and Ibarra’s father specifically. He punches Father Dámaso, but before he can kill him, he is stopped by María Clara.

Ibarra is excommunicated, and María Clara falls ill, then is reengaged to a new man after her spineless father calls off her wedding to Ibarra. Meanwhile, the Captain General, the highest Spanish official in the novel, manages to lift Ibarra's excommunication, angering the clergy. Ibarra continues working on the school, and Father Salvi, who is in love with María Clara, plots with Lucas, the brother of a man killed by the plot intended to kill Ibarra at the festival, to frame Ibarra for a rebellion, organizing people with grievances against the colonial government and telling them that Ibarra is leading the revolt. Right before the attack happens, Father Salvi warns everyone, claiming someone told him about it in confession.

Ibarra is thrown into prison, having been found guilty based on a letter he wrote to María Clara before leaving for Europe years ago. Again, Elías rescues him, breaking him out of prison and taking him to María Clara. She explains that she gave Father Salvi the letter that led to Ibarra being found guilty because he blackmailed her: he knew that her real father is Father Dámaso, and threatened to reveal this information. She apologizes to Ibarra, profoundly sorry.

Elías and Ibarra row away, but they quickly realize they're being followed by another boat, which will soon catch up. Elías jumps off the boat to confuse their pursuers, who think he is Ibarra and try to shoot him while the real Ibarra escapes. They appear to kill him, but they never see his body.

María Clara tells Father Dámaso that she can't marry Linares, the man she is now engaged to, and threatens to commit suicide if she is not allowed to enter a convent. Because a newspaper reported Ibarra is dead, she cannot bear the thought of being married to another man. Father Dámaso reluctantly agrees.

On Christmas Eve, Basilio wanders away from the cabin where he's been staying with an adoptive family and looks for Sisa, his mother. He finds her, but she doesn't recognize him and runs away. Finally, he catches her and faints, and she dies of shock, having finally recognized him. Elías appears, telling Basilio that he is about to die, and asks Basilio to put his body with Sisa's on a funeral pyre. "I die without seeing dawn’s light shining on my country…You, who will see it, welcome it for me…don’t forget those who fell during the nighttime," he says.

Noli Me Tangere Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for Noli Me Tangere is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Binanggit ni Don Rafael sa kanyang huling ipinadalang liham sa kanyang anak na nag-aaral noon sa Europa na huwag itong mag-alala at magtaka kung hindi na raw ito makakasulat sa kanya dahil magiging abala ito sa mga gawain. Ano ang tunay na dahilan kung

I'm sorry, you will need to post your question in English.

Ano ang mangyayari kapag ikaw ay natawag na filibustero

Sorry, I don't understand your question.

Noli me Tanghere

What is your question?

Noli Me Tangere/Introduction

The first half of Noli me Tangere was written in Madrid, Spain from 1884-1885 while Dr. José P. Rizal was studying for medicine.

While in Germany, Rizal wrote the second half of Noli me Tangere from time-to-time starting February 21, 1887. After he read the novel Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe, he had an inspiration to write his own novel with the same topic–to expose Spanish colonial abuse in print. Beecher Stowe's novel describes black slavery abuse done by white men. Rizal suggested to his fellow Filipino friends in Europe, through writing, to have a meeting and plan for writing a novel similar to that of Beecher Stowe's. (At this moment, Rizal planned not to write the novel himself , but through collective efforts done by other Filipinos who shared ideals with him.) In 1884, Rizal and his friends including the Paterno brothers–Pedro, Maximo, and Antonio; Graciano López-Jaena, Evaristo Aguirre, Eduardo de Lete, Melecio Figueroa, Valentín Ventura and Julio Llorento; decided to meet at the Paternos' house in Madrid. Each of them agreed to write a unified novel. Suddenly, when the writing began, most of them wanted to change the topic from Spanish abuse to somehow related to women. Rizal walked-out of the hall and decided to write the novel himself.

Title and printing [ edit | edit source ]

The title of Noli Me Tangere is not Spanish nor Tagalog, but Latin. Rizal, in his letter to his friend and Czech scientist Ferdinand Blumentritt, admitted that he obtained the title from the Bible. Rizal took the passage in John 20:17 where Jesus said to Mary Magdalene "don't touch Me!" when she recognizes him after his resurrection. The passage, when translated into Latin, is equivalent to Noli me tangere .

At the time when the novel is ready for printing, he ran out of funds. He contacted his friend, Maximo Viola, who agreed to lend him money for publishing. According to accounts, Rizal is about to throw Noli manuscripts into the fireplace when he received Viola's telegram agreeing for lending him.

Viola gave him an amount equal to three hundred pesos as preliminary payment for the first 2,000 copies of Noli Me Tangere. In 1887, the first edition of Noli was published in Berlin, Germany. To express his gratitude, he gave the original manuscript plus the plume he used to Viola. Rizal also signed the first print and gave it to Viola with dedication.

Objectives [ edit | edit source ]

In another letter to Ferdinand Blumentritt, Rizal described what he expects when the novel will be in circulation. Finally, he pointed out his primary objective:

• to defend Filipino people from foreign accusations of foolishness and lack of knowledge;
• to show how the Filipino people lives during Spanish colonial period and the cries and woes of his countrymen against abusive officials;
• to discuss what religion and belief can really do to everyday lives; and
• to expose the cruelties, graft, and corruption of the false government at honestly show the wrongdoings of Filipinos that led to further failure.

Social impact [ edit | edit source ]

Noli Me Tangere is considered to be romantic but is more socio-historical because of its nature. Most of the issues discussed in Noli can still be seen today.

After publication, Noli me Tangere was considered to be one of the instruments that initiated Filipino nationalism leading to the 1896 Philippine Revolution. The novel did not only awaken sleeping Filipino awareness, but also established the grounds for aspiring to independence. Noli me Tangere was originally written in Spanish, so the likelihood that Spanish authorities would read it first was very high;which is what Rizal wanted to happen. Copies of books were redirected to churches, many were destroyed, many anti-Noli writers came into the picture. Catholic leaders in the Philippines at the time regarded the book as heretical, while Spanish colonial authorities declared it as subversive and against the government. Underground copies were distributed, so Rizal decided to increase the price, the demand was so high.

The impact also included the expulsion of Rizal's clan in Calamba, Laguna. Extradition cases were filed against him. This led to his decision to write the sequel of Noli Me Tangere, the El filibusterismo. Unlike El Fili or Fili, as they called it, Noli Me Tangere was more delicate and did not invoke rebellion. as El Fili does. So to ensure revolutionary ideas and patriotic reaction, Rizal redefined his careful concepts in Noli to aggression in El Fili.

• Book:Noli Me Tangere

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MISSION: To foster FILIPINO NATIONALISM. "Shake the foundations." Seek knowledge/understand/think critically about roots of socioeconomic-political predicaments in our homeland; educate ourselves, expose lies/hidden truths and fight IGNORANCE of our true history. Learn from: our nationalist heroes/intellectuals/Asian neighbors/other nations;therefrom to plan/decide/act for the "common good" of the native [Malay/indio] Filipino majority. THIS BLOG IS NOT FOR PROFIT.

Friday, December 17, 2021

Noli me tangere': a review...the first filipino - benedict anderson (london review of books), "the history of the past interests us only in so far as it illuminates the history of the present." ernest dimnet, 1866-1954, french clergyman, "for we wish to understand the spirit of an age to see into its heart and mind, and to acquire a feel for how those who lived in it responded to their world and coped with its dilemmas." - a. c. grayling, notes to readers:   1. colored and/or underlined words are html links. click on them to see the linked posts/articles. forwarding this and other posts to relatives and friends, especially those in the homeland, is greatly appreciated. to share, use all social media tools: email, blog, google+, tumblr, twitter, facebook, etc. thanks 2. click the following underlined title/link to checkout these essential/primary readings about us filipino natives: primary blog posts/readings for my fellow, native (malay/indio) filipinos-in-the-philippines 3. instantly translate to any of 71 foreign languages. go to the sidebar on the right to choose your preferred language. 4. the postings are oftentimes long and a few readers have claimed being "burnt out."  my apologies. t he selected topics are not for entertainment but to stimulate deep, serious thoughts per my mission statement and hopefully to rock our boat of ignorance, apathy, complacency, and hopefully lead to active citizenship.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   *************************.

To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; credible we must be truthful." - Edward R. Murrow (1908-1965)

Hi All, I just picked up a newer edition (2006) of "Imagined Communities - Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism"  by Benedict Anderson.  In its new Preface, Anderson made a comment that the English translation of the NOLI ME TANGERE by Leon Ma. Guerrero was a "fascinatingly corrupt" version. Since I own and read the two Rizal novels (with EL FILIBUSTERISMO) translated by Guerrero, I was intrigued to find out what Anderson meant. And fortunately, I found what Anderson was talking about. Without much ado, here it is. -- Bert M. Drona, December 17, 2021 NOTE TO MYSELF AND FELLOW NATIVE FILIPINOS: Anderson's commentary seemingly implies the need for us native Filipinos to learn the Spanish language to know our past; given that 350 years of Spanish colonization have been placed in oblivion due to our ignorance of this colonial language; thanks to the Spaniards who never wanted us to be educated and the successor American colonial masters who schooled us but at the expense of destroying our Spanish colonial history, plus killing our native tongues, i.e. thus nationalism, via a subtly imposed Americanized colonial mentality. In essence, we native Filipinos (then "Indios") remain strangers -without a sense of national consciousness as one people- in our own land. Remember that the late nationalist Senator Claro M. Recto sponsored and had the requirement to study the Spanish Language implemented. I remember that we were not told why and it is only when one thinks of history that knowledge and proficiency in it becomes a very useful endeavor. It is always best to read the original vis-a-vis a translation. MY APOLOGY. I STILL HAVE TO CLEAN UP THE BORDER FORMATTING.

First Filipino

Benedict anderson.

Few countries give the observer a deeper feeling of historical vertigo than the Philippines. Seen from Asia, the armed uprising against Spanish rule of 1896, which triumphed temporarily with the establishment of an independent republic in 1898, makes it the visionary forerunner of all the other anti-colonial movements in the region. Seen from Latin America, it is, with Cuba, the last of the Spanish imperial possessions to have thrown off the yoke, seventy-five years after the rest. Profoundly marked, after three and a half centuries of Spanish rule, by Counter-Reformation Catholicism, it was the only colony in the Empire where the Spanish language never became widely understood. But it was also the only colony in Asia to have had a university in the 19 th  century. In the 1890s barely 3 per cent of the population knew ‘Castilian’, but it was Spanish-readers and writers who managed to turn movements of resistance to colonial rule from hopeless peasant uprisings into a revolution. Today, thanks to American imperialism, and the Philippines’ new self-identification as ‘Asian’, almost no one other than a few scholars understands the language in which the revolutionary heroes communicated among themselves and with the outside world – to say nothing of the written archive of pre-20 th -century Philippine history. A virtual lobotomy has taken place.

The central figure in the revolutionary generation was José Rizal, poet, novelist, ophthalmologist, historian, doctor, polemical essayist, moralist, and political dreamer. He was born in 1861 into a well-to-do family of mixed Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, Tagalog descent: five years after Freud, four years after Conrad, one year after Chekhov; the same year as Tagore; five years before Sun Yat-sen, three years before Max Weber, eight years before Gandhi, and nine before Lenin. Thirty-five years later he was arrested on false charges of inciting Andrés Bonifacio’s uprising of August 1896, and executed by a firing squad composed of native soldiers led by Spanish officers. The execution was carried out in what is now the beautiful Luneta Park, which fronts the shoreline of Manila Bay. (On the other side of the Spanish world, José Martí, the hero of Cuban nationalism, had died in action the previous year.) At the time of Rizal’s death, Lenin had just been sentenced to exile in Siberia, Sun Yat-sen had begun organising for Chinese nationalism outside China, and Gandhi was conducting his early experiments in anti-colonial resistance in South Africa.

He was growing up at a time when modern politics had begun to arrive in the colony. More than any other imperial power, 19 th -century Spain was wracked by deep internal conflicts, not merely the endless Carlist wars over the succession, but also between secular liberalism and the old aristocratic-clerical order. The brief liberal triumph in the Glorious Revolution of 1868, which drove the licentious Isabella   II   from Madrid, had immediate repercussions for the remote Pacific colony. The revolutionaries promptly announced that the benefits of their victory would be extended to the colonies. The renewed ban on the Jesuits and the closure of monastic institutions seemed to promise the end of the reactionary power of the Orders overseas. In 1869, the first ‘liberal’ Captain-General, Carlos María de la Torre, arrived in Manila, it is said to popular cries of ‘Viva la Libertad!’ (How unimaginable is a scene of this kind in British India or French Algeria.) During his two-year rule, de la Torre enraged the old-guard colonial élite, not merely by instituting moves to give equal legal rights to natives, mestizos and peninsulars, but also by going walkabout in Manila in everyday clothes and without armed guards. The collapse of the Glorious Revolution brought about a ferocious reaction in Manila, however, culminating in 1872 in the public garrotting of three secular (i.e. non-Order) priests (one creole, two mestizo), framed for masterminding a brief mutiny in the arsenal of Cavite.

The Rizal family was an immediate victim of the reaction. In 1871, when José was ten years old, his mother was accused of poisoning a neighbour, forced to walk twenty miles to prison, and held there for over two years before being released. His elder brother Paciano, a favourite pupil of Father Burgos, the leader of the garrotted priests, narrowly escaped arrest and was forced to discontinue his education. Under these circumstances, in 1882, with his brother’s support, José left quietly for the relative freedom of Spain to continue his medical studies.

He spent the next five years in Europe, studying on and off, but also travelling widely – to Bismarck’s Germany and Gladstone’s England, as well as Austro-Hungary, Italy and France – and picking up French, German and English with the ease of an obsessive and gifted polyglot. Europe affected him decisively, in two related ways. Most immediately, he came quickly to understand the backwardness of Spain itself, something which his liberal Spanish friends frequently bemoaned. This put him in a position generally not available to colonial Indians and Vietnamese, or, after the Americans arrived in Manila, to his younger countrymen: that of being able to ridicule the metropolis from the same high ground from which, for generations, the metropolis had ridiculed the natives. More profoundly, he encountered what he later described as ‘el demonio de las comparaciones’, a memorable phrase that could be translated as ‘the spectre of comparisons’. What he meant by this was a new, restless double-consciousness which made it impossible ever after to experience Berlin without at once thinking of Manila, or Manila without thinking of Berlin. Here indeed is the origin of nationalism, which lives by making comparisons.

It was this spectre that, after some frustrating years writing for  La Solidaridad , the organ of the small group of committed ‘natives’ fighting in the metropole for political reform, led him to write  Noli me tangere , the first of the two great novels for which Rizal will always be remembered. He finished it in Berlin just before midnight on 21 February 1887 – eight months after Gladstone’s first Home Rule Bill was defeated, and eight years before  Almayer’s Folly  was published. He was 26.

The two most astonishing features of  Noli Me Tangere  are its scale and its style. Its characters come from every stratum of late colonial society, from the liberal-minded peninsular Captain-General down through the racial tiers of colonial society – creoles, mestizos,  chinos  (‘pure’ Chinese) to the illiterate  indio  masses. Its pages are crowded with Dominicans, shady lawyers, abused acolytes, corrupt policemen, Jesuits, smalltown caciques, mestiza schoolgirls, ignorant peninsular carpetbaggers, hired thugs, despairing intellectuals, social-climbing  dévotes , dishonest journalists, actresses, nuns, gravediggers, artisans, gamblers, peasants, market-women and so on. (Rizal never fails to give even his most sinister villains their moments of tenderness and anguish.) Yet the geographical space of the novel is strictly confined to the immediate environs of the colonial capital, Manila. The Spain from which so many of the characters have at one time or another arrived is always off-stage. This restriction made it clear to Rizal’s first readers that ‘The Philippines’ was a society in itself, even though those who lived in it had as yet no common name. That he was the first to imagine this ‘social whole’ explains why he is remembered today as the ‘First Filipino’.

The novel’s style is still more astonishing, for it combines two radically distinct and at first glance uncombinable genres: melodrama and satire. For all its picaresque digressions, the plot is pure melodrama. The novel opens with the wealthy, handsome and naively idealistic mestizo, Don Crisostomo Ibarra, returning from a long educational sojourn in Europe with plans to modernise his home town and his  patria , and to marry his childhood sweetheart Maria Clara, the beautiful mestiza daughter of the wealthy  indio  cacique, Don Santiago de los Santos. At first he is welcomed with respect and enthusiasm, but the clouds soon gather. He discovers that his father has died in prison, framed by the brutal Franciscan friar Padre Damaso, and that his body has been thrown into the sea. Later he will learn that Damaso is the real father of his bride-to-be. Meanwhile, the young parish priest Padre Salvi secretly lusts after Maria Clara, and has covered up the murder of one of his young acolytes. Gradually, Ibarra also learns of the sinister origins of his own line in a cruel, cartpetbagging Basque, who after ruining many local peasants, hanged himself. He makes friends with Don Tasio, the local freethinking  philosophe , with liberal-minded local caciques, even with the Captain-General himself, as well as with the mysterious  indio  rebel Elias. (The dialogues between the two men on whether political reform is possible in the Philippines or a revolutionary upheaval inevitable continue to this day to be part of Philippine progressive discourse and historiography.) Meanwhile, the friars and their various local allies scheme to abort Ibarra’s marriage and his plans for establishing a modern school in his hometown. Finally, Padre Salvi, learning of a planned rebel attack on his town, frames Ibarra as its instigator and financier. The young man is imprisoned in a wave of anti-subversive arrests, torture and executions, but escapes with Elias’s help, and ends as an outlaw. Maria Clara, to avoid being forced into a loveless marriage with an insipid peninsular, chooses to become a nun, and compels her real father, whom she confronts with his adultery, to help her take her vows. She disappears into a convent where, however, Padre Salvi has managed to get himself appointed as spiritual adviser, so nameless ‘horrors’ lie in wait for the unfortunate girl.

So far, so Puccini, one might say. Yet this melodramatic plot is interspersed not only with brilliant sketches of colonial provincial society, but with the novelist’s own unquenchable laughter at the expense of his own inventions – so that  Tosca  changes into Goya’s  Caprichos . Consider the famous opening of the novel:

Towards the end of October, Don Santiago de los Santos, popularly known as Capitan Tiago, was hosting a dinner which, in spite of its having been announced only that afternoon, against his wont, was already the theme of all conversation in Binondo, in the neighbouring districts, and even in Intramuros. Capitan Tiago was reputed to be a most generous man, and it was known that his home, like his country, never closed its door to anything, as long as it was not business, or any new or bold idea.   Like an electric jolt the news circulated around the world of social parasites: the pests or dregs which God in His infinite goodness created and very fondly breeds in Manila. Some went in search of shoe polish for their boots, others for buttons and cravats, but all were preoccupied with the manner in which to greet with familiarity the master of the house, and thus pretend that they were old friends, or to make excuses, if the need arose, for not having been able to come much earlier.   This dinner was being given in a house on Anloague Street, and since we can no longer recall its number, we will try to describe it in such a way as to make it still recognisable – that is, if earthquakes have not ruined it. We do not believe that its owner would have had it pulled down, this task being ordinarily taken care of by God, or Nature, with whom our government also has many projects under contract.

Or consider the opening of the novel’s final chapter (‘Epilogue’), which comes immediately after the story has reached its grim, Gothic conclusion:

Many of our characters being still alive, and having lost sight of the others, a true epilogue is not possible. For the good of the public we would gladly kill all our personages starting with Padre Salvi and finishing with Doña Victorina, but that is not possible   . . .  let them live: the country, and not we, will in the end have to feed them   . . .

This kind of authorial play with readers, characters and reality – which reminds one of Machado de Assis’s sardonic  Memórias póstumas de Brás Cubas  (published five years earlier) – is quite uncharacteristic of most serious 19 th -century novels, and gives  Noli Me Tangere  a special appeal. It is what has always doomed nationalist attempts to put the book on stage or screen. It was surely this same laughter that earned Rizal the implacable enemies who brought him to his early death.

It is impossible to read  Noli Me Tangere  today in the way a patriotic young Manileño of 1897 would have read it: as a political hand grenade. We all have the spectre of comparisons crouched on our shoulders. It was only the second novel ever written by a putative Filipino, the first being minor, experimental trash. So what about other great colonial novels by the colonised? There is nothing in the Americas, nothing in the rest of South-East Asia, nothing in Africa till three-quarters of a century later. What about the comparison with metropolitan Spain? It has been said that Rizal borrowed heavily from Galdós, in particular from his 1876 anticlerical novel  Doña Perfecta . But Rizal’s novel is so superior in scale and depth that this ‘borrowing’ is very doubtful. In his voluminous correspondence Rizal never mentions Galdós – whose opinions on colonial questions were wholly bien-pensant. The one Spanish writer for whom he had a passionate admiration was not a novelist at all, but the brilliant satirical journalist José Mariano de la Larra, who had committed suicide in 1837, at the attractive age of 28.

And Tagore, Rizal’s exact contemporary? Here one sees a profound contrast. Tagore was the inheritor of a vast and ancient Bengali literary tradition, and most of his novels were written in Bengali for the huge Bengali population of the Raj. The mother tongue of Rizal was Tagalog, a minority language spoken by perhaps two million people in the multilingual Philippine archipelago, with no tradition of prose writing, and readable by perhaps only a few thousand. He tells us why he wrote in Spanish, a language understood by only 3 per cent of his countrymen, when he invokes ‘tú que me lees, amigo ó enemigo’ – ‘you who read me, friend or enemy’. He wrote as much for the enemy as the friend, something that did not happen with the Raj until the work, a century later, of Salman Rushdie.

Rizal could not know it, but there were to be huge costs involved in choosing to write in Spanish. Five years after his martyrdom, a greedy and barbarous American imperialism destroyed the independent Republic of the Philippines, and reduced the inhabitants once again to the status of colonial subjects. American was introduced as the new language of truth and international status, and promoted through an expanding school system. By the eve of World War Two, it had (narrowly) become the most widely understood language in the archipelago. Spanish gradually disappeared, so that by the time a quasi-independence was bestowed in 1946, it had become unreadable. Not merely the novels, essays, poetry and political articles of Rizal himself, but the writings of the whole nation-imagining generation of the 1880s and ’90s had become inaccessible. Today, most of the work of the brilliant anti-colonial propagandist Marcelo del Pilar, of the Revolution’s architect Apolinario Mabini, and of the Republic’s tragically assassinated general of genius Antonio Luna remain sepulchred in Spanish.

Hence the eerie situation which obliges Filipinos to read the work of the most revered hero of the nation in translation – into local vernaculars, and into American. Hence also a politics of translation. Translations of  Noli Me Tangere  into most of the major languages of the Philippines were bound to fail, not merely because of the absurdity of the many Spanish characters ‘speaking’ in Tagalog, Cebuano or Ilocano, but because the  enemigo  readers automatically disappear, and the satirical descriptions of mestizos and  indios  speaking bad Spanish, and Spanish colonials slipping into bad Tagalog, become untranslatable. The most important American translation, done by the alcoholic anti-American diplomat León María Guerrero in the Sixties – still the prescribed text for high schools and universities – is no less fatally flawed by systematic bowdlerisation in the name of official nationalism. Sex, anticlericalism and any perceived relevance to the contemporary nation are all relentlessly excised, with the aim of turning Rizal into a boring, long-dead national saint.

Which brings us to the present translation, more or less timed for the centenary of Rizal’s execution. A few years ago, Doreen Fernandez, one of the Philippines’ most distinguished scholars, deeply disturbed by the corruption of Rizal’s texts, went in search of a compatriot linguistically capable of making a reliable translation. She eventually found one in Soledad Lacson-Locsin, an elderly upper-class woman born early enough in this century for Rizal’s Spanish – by no means the same as 1880s Madrid Spanish – to be second nature to her. The old lady completed new translations of both  Noli Me Tangere  and its even more savage 1891 sequel  El Filibusterismo  just before she died.

In most respects, it is a huge advance over previous translations, handsomely laid out and with enough footnotes to be helpful without being pettifogging. But the barbarous American influence is still there, to say nothing of the basic transformation of consciousness that created, for the first time, within a year or so of Rizal’s execution, a national idea of ‘the’ Filipino.

In Rizal’s novels the Spanish words  filipina  and  filipino  still mean what they had traditionally meant – i.e. creoles, people of ‘pure’ Spanish descent who were born in the Philippines. This stratum was, in accordance with traditional imperial practice, wedged in between  peninsulares  (native Spaniards) and mestizos,  chinos  and  indios . The novels breathe nationalism of the classical sort, but this nationalism has to do with love of patria, not with race: ‘Filipino’ in the 20 th -century ethno-racial sense never appears. But by 1898, when Apolinario Mabini began to write – two years after Rizal’s execution – the old meaning had vanished. Hence the fundamental difficulty of the present translation is that  filipino/filipina  almost always appear in the anachronistic form of Filipino/Filipina: for example, ‘el bello sexo está representado por españolas peninsulares y filipinas’ (‘the fair sex is represented by peninsular and creole Spanish women’) is rendered absurdly as ‘the fair sex being represented by Spanish peninsular ladies and Filipinas’.

The other problem is a flattening of the political and linguistic complexity of the original, no doubt because Mrs Lacson-Locsin was born just too late to have had an élite Spanish-era schooling. When Rizal had the racist Franciscan friar Padre Damaso say contemptuously, ‘cualquier bata de la escuela lo sabe,’ he mockingly inserted the Tagalog  bata  in place of the Spanish  muchacho  to show how years in the colony had unconsciously creolised the friar’s language. This effect disappears when Mrs Lacson-Locsin translates the words as ‘any schoolchild knows that.’ Rizal quotes three lines of the much-loved 19 th -century Tagalog poet Francisco Balthazar in the original, without translating it into Spanish, to create the necessary intercultural jarring; but quoting the poem in the same language as the text surrounding it erases the effect. The ironical chapter heading ‘Tasio el loco ó el filósofo’ shrinks to ‘Tasio’, and one would not suspect that the chapter heading ‘A Good Day is Foretold by the Morning’ was originally in Italian. The translator also has difficulties with Rizal’s use of untranslated Latin.

There are a few prophets who are honoured in their own country, and José Rizal is among them. But the condition of this honour has for decades been his unavailability. Mrs Lacson-Locsin has changed this by giving the great man back his sad and seditious laughter. And it is badly needed – if one thinks of all those ‘social parasites: the pests or dregs which God in His infinite goodness created and very fondly breeds in Manila’.

                                                                        *********

Vol. 19 No. 24 · 11 December 1997

For weeks now, I have been puzzling over a curious line in Benedict Anderson’s review of José Rizal’s  Noli Me Tangere  ( LRB , 16 October ). Since Rizal wrote in Spanish, Anderson claims, ‘he wrote as much for the enemy as the friend, something that did not happen with the Raj until the work, a century later, of Salman Rushdie.’ I surmise that the colonists are the enemies and those with the same mother tongue are friends, but I am still left with questions. Since (as Anderson notes) far more of his enemies than his friends knew Spanish, wasn’t Rizal writing more for his enemies than his friends? Whatever the merits of post-colonial theory, surely Rushdie’s work appeared after the Raj? Innumerable Indians before Rushdie wrote for their enemies, from Bankim Chandra Chatterjee to A. Madaviah, who wrote four novels in English for the express purpose of enlightening the British. I believe Tagore won the Nobel Prize for his English-language writings. Many of these writers also wrote in their own languages – and their bilingualism much better suits the phrase ‘as much for the enemy as the friend’. Nor is Bengali an ‘ancient’ language any more than, say, French, and there’s something odd about the remark that Tagore wrote for the ‘huge Bengali population of the Raj’. Surely Tagore wrote for the huge Bengali population of the world?

V.K.  Mina New York

Vol. 20 No. 3 · 5 February 1998

V.K.  Mina is wrong in stating that Rabindranath Tagore ‘won the Nobel Prize for his English-language writings’ ( Letters, 11 December 1997 ). He was awarded the prize for work written in Bengali.

Miguel Orio Nederland, Colorado

Vol. 19 No. 22 · 13 November 1997

It was gratifying to see Benedict Anderson write a political as well as a literary analysis of the latest translation of José Rizal’s  Noli Me Tangere  ( LRB , 16 October ). Although Rizal is not that well known internationally, he has not really been ‘unavailable’ in the Philippines. When the Americans took the country over they found him an ideal hero to promote since he had not – unlike Bonifacio, Mabini, Aguinaldo and others – advocated revolution or independence. The national literature has long been replete with writings by and on Rizal. Like Martin Luther King (but not, say, Jesse Jackson), he was a safe figure for the establishment to celebrate.

As Anderson notes, Rizal wrote mainly in Spanish, for he wished to address his ‘enemies’ as well as his ‘friends’. In the Philippines, unlike Latin America, Spanish never became a language of the people. One reason is that when the Spaniards settled the Philippines, there were already populations with well developed languages and alphabets, and the Spaniards were never more than a small minority. Nor did they establish a public school system (although they did establish universities, and much earlier than the 19 th  century cited by Anderson – Santo Tomás, founded in 1616, is 25 years older than Harvard), and pedagogically inclined parish priests and native Filipinos taught the  catón  in the local languages. Spanish, too, was overwhelmingly the language of the (print) media and government, so that the educated and those wishing to read had to know it, much as the Arab intelligentsia in Algeria had to know French. But the real tragedy was the low level of literacy in  any  language, which the Americans raised when they established a public school system, albeit in English.

Anderson (like Rizal) perhaps makes too much of ethno-racial parallels with Latin America. True, there were ‘peninsulares’ and ‘filipinos’ – people of ‘pure’ Spanish descent born in the Philippines – but the latter were few compared with their Latin American counterparts. There was never a movement of ‘white filipinos’ to secede from Spain. Also unlike most of Latin America, the Philippines was ruled during much of its colonial history through the viceroy in Mexico rather than directly by Spain. Such esoteric distinctions, in any case, were lost on the vaster native population. This is shown by the fact that, as Anderson has noted, by the time Mabini was writing, a mere two years after Rizal’s execution, the ‘old meaning [of “filipino”] had vanished’.

It is interesting to note that although the term ‘mestizo’ has practically the same meaning in the Philippines and Latin America, it denotes someone with part Indian ‘blood’ in the latter, and someone with part Spanish (or Chinese) blood in the former. The definitions are identical but the perspectives are not. The culture of the Philippines  is  a blend, whereas the Latin American establishment remains Spanish with its native population marginalised.

Ruben Mendez UN  Development Programme

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Book Review | Noli Me Tangere | Jose Rizal

Welcome to my book review blog, where we delve into the captivating novel “ Noli Me Tangere ” written by Jose Rizal . Published in 1887, this remarkable Filipino literary work not only tells a story but also sheds light on social issues and remains relevant even today. Let’s explore what makes this novel a timeless classic.

Plot and Storytelling:

“ Noli Me Tangere ” is set during the Spanish colonial era in the Philippines and follows the journey of Crisostomo Ibarra, a young idealist returning to his homeland after living in Europe. As the story unfolds, Rizal skillfully presents a tale of love, betrayal, social injustice, and the fight for national identity.

The narrative is engaging, and Rizal’s attention to detail brings 19th-century Philippines to life. The descriptions of the countryside and the bustling streets of Manila create a vivid backdrop against which the characters’ lives unfold.

Characters: The characters in “Noli Me Tangere” are diverse and well-developed, representing different sections of Philippine society. Crisostomo Ibarra is the main character, a symbol of hope and change, while Padre Salvi portrays the oppressive religious institutions. Rizal’s character development is excellent, showcasing individuals with both virtues and flaws, reflecting the complexities of human nature.

Themes and Social Commentary:

The novel addresses the prevalent social injustice during the Spanish colonial period as a central theme. Rizal fearlessly exposes the corruption within the government, the church, and the elite class, shedding light on the hardships faced by ordinary people. The book serves as a powerful critique of abuse of power and the denial of individual freedoms.

Furthermore, “Noli Me Tangere” explores the struggle for national identity and the desire for freedom from foreign oppression. Rizal effectively weaves his political ideals into the characters’ journeys, conveying a message of hope and resilience to his fellow countrymen.

Writing Style:

Rizal’s writing style in “Noli Me Tangere” is eloquent and evocative. His mastery of language allows readers to empathize with the characters’ joys and sorrows, immersing themselves in the narrative. Symbolism and allegory add depth to the story, providing layers of meaning for readers to discover.

Impact and Significance: “Noli Me Tangere” holds great historical and cultural significance for Filipinos. It played a crucial role in inspiring the Philippine Revolution against Spanish colonial rule and remains a cornerstone of Filipino literature. Rizal’s novel not only awakened national consciousness but also influenced future generations of Filipino writers and thinkers.

Conclusion: In conclusion, “Noli Me Tangere” is a gripping and thought-provoking novel that explores social injustices and political turmoil in 19th-century Philippines. Jose Rizal’s insightful storytelling, well-crafted characters, and profound social commentary make this book a timeless masterpiece. It is a must-read for anyone interested in understanding the complexities of Philippine history, society, and the indomitable human spirit.

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Philippine Literature: Understanding The Message Behind Noli Me Tangere

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Noli Me Tangere, one of the most well-known Filipino novels, is a work of fiction written by Jose Rizal. It was first published in 1887 and it is considered to be the most important novel in Philippine literature. It tells the story of two friends: Juan Crisostomo Ibarra and Elias who are both from wealthy families.

The novel was written in Spanish and English for different audiences. The Spanish version was meant for Spaniards residing in the Philippines while the English version was meant for an international audience. Noli Me Tangere has been translated into over 20 languages and it has been adapted into films and TV series as well as musicals.

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An Analysis of Noli Me Tangere and what it says about Philippine Culture

Noli Me Tangere is a novel by Jose Rizal that is considered an important part of Filipino culture. Its main theme is the oppression of the Filipino people by Spanish colonialists. It also touches on many other themes such as class struggle, education, and religion.

We can see how much this novel has impacted Philippine culture when we look at how it has influenced literature in the country to this day. The book has given rise to many films, TV series, and even comics that have been made in its likeness.

Hidden messages in noli me tangere

Noli Me Tangere is translated to “Touch Me Not” in English. It was published in Berlin, Germany in 1887. This novel was written by Jose Rizal as a response to the Spanish colonization of the Philippines and its brutal treatment of Filipinos.

This novel is about Crisostomo Ibarra who returns from his studies abroad, but he has an accident on his way home and goes into hiding for seven years before he can return to his family again. The novel is a chronicle of the life and times of Ibarra from his birth to death, including his struggles and dreams, his intense friendships as well as the ways he reconciles with society. The novel is not linear. The first six chapters are told in chronological order, but chapter 7 is set in 1892 and tells the story of Ibarra’s youth. You can read a summary of the novel here – Noli Me Tangere Buod 2022.

Noli me Tangere is also considered one of the most important novels in Filipino literature because it paved the way for Philippine independence from Spain and America.

The Mechanism Behind Noli Me Tangere’s Success as a Novel in Philippine History

Noli Me Tangere served as a catalyst for the Philippine Revolution against Spain. The novel is considered as a masterpiece of Filipino literature and has been translated into many languages.

The novel was able to spark the revolution because it was written in Filipino, which was then the national language of the Philippines. This made it accessible to more people who could understand and relate to its message, which encouraged them to take action against Spain’s colonial rule over them.

El Filibusterismo by José Rizal

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B+ : bursting with stories; an interesting variation on the socio-political novel

See our review for fuller assessment.

*: review is of a previous translation    From the Reviews : "This portrayal of Filipino life gives permanent interest to these books. The characters are taken from every branch of society, including the Spaniard of noble ideals and the native of barbarous instincts. We are not sure that psychologically these people are very deeply or acutely drawn; but their exteriors at least are real and vivacious. If we do not carry away from among them any lasting friendships, we do gain a picture of life in the Philippines that is varied and complete." - The Nation "The author's shafts of attack are directed especially against the friars. He is unhesitating in his exposure, however, of whatever he believes to be evil in Philippine society. His style is clear, ironic, sometimes picturesque. (...) The Reign of Greed is written with more political force and less charm, and is almost without incident." - The New York Times Book Review Please note that these ratings solely represent the complete review 's biased interpretation and subjective opinion of the actual reviews and do not claim to accurately reflect or represent the views of the reviewers. Similarly the illustrative quotes chosen here are merely those the complete review subjectively believes represent the tenor and judgment of the review as a whole. We acknowledge (and remind and warn you) that they may, in fact, be entirely unrepresentative of the actual reviews by any other measure.

The complete review 's Review :

I've traveled the world over and worked day and night to amass a fortune to carry out my plan. Now I've come back to destroy that system, to shatter the corruption, to push it to the abyss to which it rushes without even its own knowledge, even if it means a tidal wave of tears and blood. It has doomed itself, but I don't want to die without seeing it in tatters at the bottom of the cliff.

We're not like the English and the Dutch who, in order to maintain the people's submission, make use of the whip ... We employ softer, more secure measures. The healthy influence of the friars is superior to the English whip.

Here any independent thought, any word that does not echo the will of the powerful, is called filibusterismo and you know well what that means. It's madness for anyone to have the pleasure of saying what he thinks aloud, because he's courting persecution.

When the poor neighborhoods erupt in chaos, when my avengers sow discord in the streets, you longtime victims of greed and errancy, I will tear down the walls of your prison and release you from the claws of fanaticism, and then, white dove, you will become a phoenix to rise from its still-glowing ashes. A revolution, woven in the dim light of mystery, has kept me from you. Another revolution will return me to your arms, bring me back to life, and that moon before it reaches the height of its splendor, will light up the Philippines, cleansed of its repugnant trash --

Tonight those most dangerous of tyrants will rocket off as dust, those irresponsible tyrants who have hidden behind God and the state, whose abuses remain unpunished because no one can take them to task. Tonight the Philippines will hear an explosion that will convert into rubble the infamous monument whose rotteness I helped bring about.

- M.A.Orthofer , 2 July 2011

About the Author :

       José Rizal was born in 1861 and executed in 1896. The author of Noli me tangere , he remains a leading figure in the history of the Philippines.

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