CHAPTER 9

NOLI ME TANGERE, CONTEXT AND CONTENT

José Rizal's first novel, Noli Me Tangere, is considered one of the most important written outputs
by the national hero at the height of his intellectual endeavors in Europe. In this novel, Rizal mustered his
academic acumens as he tapped his knowledge of various fields and wove a narrative that aimed to
represent, if not expose, the realities of nineteenth century colonial life in the Philippines. Many
appreciate the Noli for its narrative that takes the readers, through the eyes of its characters, on a journey
of love and deception, struggles and triumphs, and in the process, presents pressing questions about
power and social inequalities.

This chapter will explore the context of the publication of the Noll. The novel's major elements
will also be appraised from its main characters and settings and its plot and major conflicts will be tackled.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

At the end of this chapter, the students should be able to:

describe the context of the publication of the Noli Me Tongere;

and discuss the major elements of the Noli Me Tongere as a novel.

VOCABULARY

novel - a long written story most often about fictional events and characters
setting (in a novel) - the context in which the events take place; covers geographical areas in particular
periods of time

plot - the flow of the narrative in a story.

The Publication of the Noli

As a sojourner in Europe, Rizal participated in the movement of the ilustrados to utilize

The idea of publishing a book was not alien to Rizal. In a meeting of the ilustrados in 1884, he
proposed to write a book project to be done collaboratively with his fellow writers. Unfortunately, the
project did not materialize. He eventually decided to write a novel on his own. He started work on the
project in 1884 and completed it in 1887.

Many of his biographers cite several works that influenced Rizal in the writing of the Noli. One of
these is Juan Luna's painting, Spoliarium, which depicted the sufferings faced by humanity in the face of
inequalities. Another is Uncle Tom's Cabin, a novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe that dealt with slavery in
America.

Rizal finished the first half of the novel in Spain, supposedly the other half in France, then
completed the draft in 1886. The novel was published the following year in Germany. Lack of funds
delayed the book's publication until a fellow ilustrado, Maximo Viola, insisted on lending him 300 pesos
for the printing of the first 2,000 copies. By 1887, Rizal was already sending out copies of the Noli to his
friends and the book began to take flight.

Motivations behind Writing the Noli

The title, Noli Me Tangere, had Biblical reference to the Gospel of John (20:17) in which Jesus
appeared to Mary Magdalene and uttered these words: “Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended to my
Father." The choice of title according to Rizal was fitting because he intended to write about themes that
were taboo in the Philippines for centuries; things that people dared not touch.

According to his biographers, Rizal first planned to write his novel in French, considered to be the
language of the intellectuals in Europe at that time. He, however, shifted to Spanish because he intended
to reach out to his countrymen in the Philippines. Rizal explained: “I must wake from its slumber the spirit
of my country... I must first propose to my countrymen an example with which they can struggle against
their bad qualities, and afterwards, when they have reformed, many writers would rise up to present my
country to proud Europe" (qtd. in Schumacher, 1991, p. 93).

In the initial pages of the Noli, the dedication titled "A Mi Patria” clearly articulated Rizal's purpose
for writing the novel:

To my Motherland

In the annals of human adversity, there is etched a cancer, of a breed so malignant that the least contact
exacerbates it, and stirs in it the sharpest of pains. An thus, many times amidst modern cultures I have
wanted to evoke you, sometimes for memories of you to keep me company, other times, to compare you
with other nations--many times your beloved image appears to me afflicted with a social cancer of similar
malignancy.

Desiring your well-being, which is our own and searching for the best cure, I will do with you as the ancients
of old did with their afflicted, expose them on the steps of the temple so that each one who would come
to invoke the Divine would propose a cure for them.

And to this end, I will attempt to faithfully reproduce your condition without much ado. I will lift part of
the shroud that conceals your illness, sacrificing to the truth everything, even my own self-respect, for, as
your son, I also suffer in your defects and failings.

Jose Rizal, 1886

Sources: Rizal, José (Translated by Ma. Soledad Lacson-Locsin). 1996. Noli me tangere. Makati:
Bookmark
 The project of writing the Noli, as stated, was geared towards exposing the ills of Philippine
colonial society under Spain. Thus, through the passages within the Noli, readers also get glimpses of how
Rizal saw his country.

Plot

The story of the Noli Me Tangere followed the life of Juan Crisostomo Ibarra after he returned to
the Philippines from studying in Europe. The novel opened with Capitan Tiago preparing a homecoming
gathering for the young ilustrado. Throughout the pages of the novel, the characters could be seen
navigating the complex realities of colonial Philippines. Ibarra was shown to be rekindling links with his
betrothed Maria Clara. But not everything was fine and dandy for Ibarra. Upon his return, he learned
about the ills that plagued his town as well as the abuses of the friars to which his late father fell victim
to. Ibarra found an antagonist in Padre Damaso, the former curate of San Diego who ordered that the
corpse of his father be exhumed and reburied in the Chinese cemetery.

Despite these personal travails, Ibarra persevered to fulfill the plan of building a school in San
Diego, staying true to his belief that education was crucial for his nation's progress. Ibarra almost got killed
had it not for Elias, a boatman, who saved him. Elias also previously cautioned Ibarra about his actions
that could anger the friars. After the incident, Ibarra organized a luncheon.

Here, another confrontation occurred between Ibarra and Damaso who attended the luncheon
uninvited. In a fit of anger, Ibarra took a knife against Damaso's neck and threatened to slit his throat as
he told everyone of the abuses committed by Damaso and the desecration he did to Ibarra's father. Maria
Clara calmed Ibarra and prevented him from killing the friar. Damaso, in an act of revenge, persuaded
Capitan Tiago, the father of Maria Clara, to not allow his daughter to marry Ibarra.

After some time, a revolt was blamed on Ibarra, which caused his incarceration. With the help of
Elias, he escaped and went to see Maria Clara who was soon marrying the man her father chose for her.
In a heartbreaking confrontation, Ibarra and Maria Clara exchanged accusations and in the process, it was
revealed that Damaso was the true father of Maria Clara.
As turmoil and confusion engulfed the town, Maria Clara thought Ibarra had been killed. This
caused her endless grief. She asked to be confined to a nunnery lest she take her own life. It was later
revealed that Ibarra was not dead and that Elias was the one fatally shot. In the latter passages, the dying
Elias was waiting for Ibarra but instead, met and talked to the young Basilio. He instructed the orphaned
boy (his mother Sisa, who became insane looking for her young sons, had died) to find the treasure of
Ibarra buried in the cemetery and use it to get an education. He reminded Basilio to never lose hope and
if one day, freedom and progress would come to his country, to not forget those who labored in the night.

Within this general contour of the narrative, Rizal wove a complex story and subplots. Reading
through the novel, different characters and their corresponding stories unfolded as told through the voice
of an unseen narrator. Truly, the pages of the Noli reflected the lives of people living in the complicated
world of colonial Philippines.
CHAPTER 10

NOLI ME TANGERE,

CONTINUING RELEVANCE

While the Noli Me Tangere triggered social conversations in the late nineteenth century
Philippines, it is important to note how the novel continues to resonate beyond its time. The success of
Rizal's novel also rests on its timelessness in terms of present-day social issues and political/economic
realities. In this chapter, Noli's legacy and continuing relevance will be explained as a text not only in the
field of literature but also in the areas of history and the social sciences. The chapter will also look at Rizal
as a social scientist who espoused early articulations of a social-scientific manner of understanding and
presenting the way of life, in this case, within a colonial context. The lesson will start with a discussion of
the incarnations of the Noli as it was published after Rizal's time. This will be followed by a section on the
study of colonial society.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

At the end of this chapter, the students should be able to:

appreciate the importance of Rizal as a thinker, and

relate the issues raised in the novel to the changing landscape of the contemporary world.

VOCABULARY

censorship - the suppression of the release or publication of material deemed inappropriate, obscene,
politically unacceptable, or a threat to security

critique - an evaluation, analysis, or assessment of a literary, philosophical, or scientific work

sociology - the social science dealing with the study of the development, structures, and functioning of
human society

Noli After Its First Publication

At present, Noli Me Tangere is considered by many as a landmark piece of literature. In his account
of the literary history of the Philippines, scholar Resil Mojares even went to the extent of naming Rizal as
the father of the Filipino novel (Testa-De Ocampo, 2011). As already discussed in the previous chapter,
the themes of the novel revolved around societal issues experienced in the Philippines under the Spanish
colonial rule. As such, the novel did not go unnoticed and became a subject of discussion and debate.
In the immediate months and years after its release in 1887, the Noli generated reactions from
readers, Filipinos and foreigners alike. Responses ranged from praise to outright ridicule. One sector that
espoused utmost disdain for the novel was the Spanish clergy as well as some Spanish colonial officials. It
is thus understandable that Spanish friars vehemently prohibited the circulation of the novel in 1887 when
Fray Salvador Font, chair of the censorship commission, outlawed the reading and possession of Rizal's
novel. Many other friars assessed and judged the book as pernicious. They enjoined devout Catholics not
to read the novel to avoid committing capital sins. Not only confined in the Philippines, critiques of the
novel coming from Spanish officials and academics also circulated in Spain. One staunch critic of the novel
was the Spanish academic Vicente Barrantes who wrote several articles in Spanish newspapers ridiculing
Rizal as a "man of contradictions." Barrantes lamented that Rizal's lambasting of the friars and the
Spaniards was reflective of the author and telling more about the Filipinos.

As much as Rizal's critics came from various sectors, his novel also found ardent defenders among
his peers. Many of his colleagues in the Propaganda Movement praised his novel. One example is Marcelo
H. del Pilar who even wrote essays in response to critics of the Noli. Rizal's friend, Ferdinand Blumentritt,
also an academic, also expressed support for the novel.

As the Noli stirred controversy in social circles in nineteenth century Philippines, it is remarkable
to realize that even beyond its time, the novel continued to be a subject of debate and discussion. In the
immediate years after its publication, the Noli was translated into several languages. One of the earliest
translations of the novel was done in French. Many scholars posit that there were early attempts to
translate the novel into German (by Blumentritt) and even Tagalog (by Rizal's brother, Paciano) but these
plans never came to fruition. At the turn of the twentieth century, during the American colonial period,
several other translations and editions of the novel came out. Arguably the most circulated versions were
the English translations of Charles Derbyshire. By the 1930s, Rizal's Noli had several Spanish editions,
translations into English, French, Japanese, and also into several languages in the Philippines including
Tagalog, Cebuano, Waray, Iloko, and Bikol (Testa-De Ocampo, 2011).

The very controversy that surrounded the passage of the Rizal Law indicated the relevance of the
text in the 1950s and even beyond. In academia, many scholars have also made it a point to discuss the
politics of translation and the nuances of transforming the text in several forms. As Testa- De Ocampo
points out, as much as the novel is elevated in the highest echelons of Philippine literary history, seldom
do we find Filipinos reading it in the original Spanish. Versions and translations of the Noli also did not go
without scrutiny from academics like Benedict Anderson. Truly, be it about its content, context, or the
way it is read or used, the value of Rizal's novel is definitely felt in the Philippines.

Noli and the Study of a Colonial Society

A remarkable aspect of Rizal's Noli lies in its text which espoused the national hero's articulations
of a social-scientific view of the nineteenth century Philippines he was describing. Sociologist Syed Fareed
Alatas even went as far as describing Rizal as "probably the first systematic social thinker in Southeast
Asia."

Taken together with Rizal's other writings, the Noli makes an important contribution to the
understanding of a colonial society and of the workings of the Spanish empire in the Philippines. The novel
portrayed the lives of the characters of diverse positions from which people in nineteenth century
Philippines thought and acted in relation to others. Many scholars interpret the Noli as Rizal's diagnosis
of the ills of colonial society as he assessed the role played by the church, the state, and the people. In the
Noli, Rizal highlighted some of his ideas on how the Philippine society could be emancipated from the
bondage of colonial role. He underscored the importance of education as a powerful tool to achieve
progress. However, he also exposed the complexities and constraints wrought by the colonial condition
not only on toreigners, but also on some misguided Filipinos that contributed to the ills of society. As Rizal
exposed the vile realities of the context he wrote about, he also emphasized the good qualities of the
Filipinos, which needed to be harnessed in order to succeed in the struggle for emancipation.
CHAPTER 11

LOOKING AT THE FILIPINO PAST

During the Spanish colonial period, Philippine history was primarily written by the Spaniards. Early
Spanish historians took note of the native's appearance and way of life. However, many of these early
histories depicted the Filipinos in negative terms and often contained biases against the colonized people.

José Rizal's annotation of Antonio Morga's work, Sucesos de las Islas Flipinas, was an attempt to
redress this biased view of the Filipinos. Although Rizal's annotations have been "largely disregarded." his
work has been credited as the first Philippine history to be written from the viewpoint of a Filipino,

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

At the end of this chapter, the students should be able to:

argue the reasons why José Rizal decided to annotate Antonio Morga's work, Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas;

relate how Rizal's annotations conform with the overall aims of the Propaganda Movement; and

create their own annotations of a sample text.

VOCABULARY

Audiencia - the Royal Audiencia or the royal court of Justice in Spain and its colonies

ecclesiastics - the religious missionaries

secular - having ideas and attitudes not determined by any religious bias

Antonio Morga was a Spanish administrator who served in the Philippines in the late sixteenth
century. He was born in Seville in 1559 and began working for the government in 1580. He served as the
Lieutenant-Governor--second most powerful position in the colony-of the Philippines in 1593 and then as
a judge of the Audiencia in 1598. By 1615, he moved to Mexico where he served as the president of the
Audiencia. He was later investigated for corruption and was found guilty. Before being sent to the gallows,
however, he died in 1636.
Morga's work, Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas, was published in 1609 in Mexico and consisted of
eight chapters. The first seven chapters dealt with the terms of the governor-generals who had served in
the Philippines from the time of Miguel Lopez de Legazpi in 1565 to Pedro de Acuña in 1606. The last
chapter titled "An account of the Philippine Islands," provided ample descriptions of early Filipinos upon
the arrival of the Spaniards in the sixteenth century.

While at the British Museum in late 1889, Rizal found a copy of the first edition of Antonio Morga's
Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas and began copying the text by hand. He annotated the work along the way
with the intention of creating a critical work on the history of the Philippines. Despite hopes of getting the
work published through the help of Antonio Regidor, Rizal ended up with no publisher when his
annotations were done.
 By September 1889, Rizal decided to publish the ai himself in Garnier Hermanos, a printing press
based in Paris.

Rizal's choice of annotating Morga's work amo other early chronicles written by Spaniards is not
coincide Historian Ambeth Ocampo provides five reasons behind Rizal’s choice.

The first reason, according to Ocampo, was the fact that Morga's work in its original Spanish
edition was rare. In fact, tha original Spanish text had never been reprinted in full until Rizal published his
annotations in 1889. Second, unlike other early Spanish chronicles written by ecclesiastics, Morga was a
civil administrator and therefore provided a secular view of historical events during the early Spanish
colonial period. This second reason relates to Rizal's belief that a secular account was more credible than
those written by religious missionaries, which is the third reason for his choice. Fourth, it was more
sympathetic towards the natives in contrast to the biased accounts written by the friars. Finally, Morga's
work was a fitting choice because he was an eyewitness to historical events that occurred in the
Philippines during the period of early Spanish colonization.

With the publication of his annotations to Sucesos, Rizal presented an outline of a linear
conception of history. While Noli Me Tangere dealt with the nineteenth century or Rizal's present, and El
Filibusterismo and the essay titled "The Philipines a Century Hence” covered the future, the annotations
of Sucesos tackled the past.

More than an attempt to write the country's history however, Rizal's annotation of Morga's
Sucesos must also be seen within the context of the Propaganda Movement. A time when Filipino
propagandists were clamoring for reforms in Spain, presenting a critical narrative of the country's history
might be considered as an endeavor to create a sense of consciousness or identity that was anchored on
a glorious part. Whereas early Spanish chroniclers ridiculed the early Filipinos for being barbarians, Rizal's
copious notes of Sucesos revealed early Filipino culture as rich and flourishing. Thus, Rizal's Stations may
be considered an effort to assert Filipino identity within an oppressive colonial framework.

Excerpt 1

Morga:

Their regular daily food is rice... together with boiled fish of which there is an abundance, and pork or
venison, likewise meat of wild buffalo or carabao. They prefer meat and fish, saltfish which begin to
decompose and smell.

Rizal's annotation:

This is another preoccupation of the Spaniards who, like any other nation, in the matter of food, loathe
that to which they are not accustomed or is unknown to them. The English, for example, is horrified on
seeing 4 Spaniard eating snails; to the Spaniard beefsteak is repugnant and he can't understand how raw
beefsteak can be eaten; the Chinese who eat tahuri and shark Cannot stand Roquefort cheese, etc., etc.
The fish that Morga mentions does not taste better when it is beginning to rot; all on the contrary: it is
bagoong and all of those who have eaten it and tasted it know that it is not or ought not to be rotten.
Excerpt 2

Morga:

In the rivers and streams there are very large and small scorpions and a great number of very fierce and
cruel crocodiles which frequently get the natives from their bancas on which they ride... However much
the people may trap, catch and kill them, these reptiles hardly seem to diminish in number. For this
reason, the natives build on the border of their rivers and streams in their settlements where they
bathe, traps and fences with thick enclosures and bars of bamboo and timber within which they do their
bathing and washing, secure from these monsters which them: fear and respect to the degree of
veneration, as if they were somehow superior to them.

Rizal's annotation:

Perhaps for the same reason, other nations have great esteem for the lion and bear, putting them on
their shields and giving them honorable epithets. The mysterious life of the crocodile, the enormous size
that it sometimes reaches, its fatidical aspect, without counting any more its voraciousness, must have
influenced greatly the imagination of the Malayan Filipinos.

CHAPTER 12

INDOLENCE OR INDUSTRY

In the opening scene of Noli Me Tongere, a social gathering in the house of Kapitan Tiago serves as a
venue for guests to mingle and converse. In one such ocassion, Father Damaso explicitly states his
opinion of the indio. While speaking to a young man about the native Filipinos, Damaso exclaims, "As I
believe in the Gospel! The Indian is so indolent!" To this, the young man poses the question, "Does this
Indolence actually, naturally, exist among the natives or is there some truth in what a foreign traveler
says that with this indolence we excuse our own, as well as our backwardness and our colonial system?"

Indolence in the natives was a view commonly held by foreigners who came to the Philippines as
evident in the conversation narrated above. Rizal and the other propagandists, however, felt that this
view was misguided and made efforts for its rectification. One such attempt was through Rizal's essay,
"Sobre la Indolencia de los Filipinos" (On the Indolence of the Filipinos), which will serve as the topic of
this chapter.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

At the end of this chapter, the students should be able to:

summarize in their own words Rizal's essay, "On the Indolence of the Filipinos":

explain the factors that cause the indolence of Filipinos; and

defend their personal views on the question of the indolence of the Filipinos.
VOCABULARY

indio-a term used by the Spaniards to refer to the native Filipinos: occasionally used in a derogatory
manner

Moro piracy - a series of raids in several Philippine towns committed by Muslims from Mindanao during
the seventeenth to eighteenth centuries

Filipinos during the period of Spanish colonization were commonly described as lazy. Several
foreigners visiting the Philippines from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries affirmed this view
with their observations. Gemelli Careri, an Italian traveler who came to the country in the seventeenth
century, remarked, "It is their laziness that makes them appear less ingenious; and they are so entirely
addicted to it, that if in walking they find a thorn run into their foot, they will not stoop to put it out of the
way, that another may not tread on it." A more scathing portrayal was given by friar Gaspar de San Agustin
in 1720. He stated that "their laziness is such that if they open a door, they never close it; and if they take
any implement for any use, such as a knife, pair of scissors, hammer, etc., they never return it whence
they took it, but drop it there at the foot of the work." Indolence was also commented upon by the
German scholar Feodor Jagor in the nineteenth century. "Along the river Pasig, somebody might be seen
asleep heap of coconuts. If the nuts run ashore, the sleeper rouses himself, pushes off with a long bamboo,
and contentedly relane into slumber, as his eccentric rafts regains the current of river. More than simple
observations, the remarks given hu these foreigners resulted in a perennial view of the Filipino incapable
or inherently lacking in abilities.

Rizal's work, "Sobre la Indolencia de los Filipinos" (On the Indolence of the Filipinos), was an
attempt to rectify this view.

The essay was serialized in six issues of La Solidaridad from, July 15 to September 15, 1890. It
addressed the accusation made by foreign observers by establishing through careful argumentation that
indolence was not an inherent trait but was an effect of other conditions imposed upon the Filipinos.

Rizal's reasoning echoes the ideas laid down earlier Gregorio Sancianco's El Progreso de las
Filipinas in 1881. Sancianco advocated for reforms in the government's taxation system because he
believed that public revenues were necessary for the overall development of the country. He also
confronted the issue of the laziness of Filipinos by attributing the trait to the poor economic conditions
that rendered the natives lethargic and unmotivated.

Rizal's essay, though, addresses the issue of the Filipino's laziness more directly "inasmuch as the
talk about it has continued, not only by employees who blame it to cover their own stupidity, not only by
friars who consider it necessary for the perpetuation of their pretention that they cannot be replaced, but
also by serious-minded and disinterested persons."

From the outset, Rizal does not deny the existence of indolence in the Filipinos. “The
predisposition exists," he notes, "[because the warm climate demands of the individual quietness and
rest, just as cold climate stirs up men to work and to be active." However, he asserts that the evil does
not lie in the existence of indolence, but in the way that it is perpetuated, points out, "The evil is found in
the fact that indolence in the Philippines is an exaggerated indolence, a snowball indolence, so to speak,
a vice which increases four-fold as time elapses.”
 The Filipinos were not always lazy, according to Rizal. When one looked back at the precolonial
past, he/she would see the industry, agriculture, and commerce the early Filipinos engaged in. Rizal cites
as one example an account written by Pigafetta who described the flourishing trade of goods such as
cinnamon, pepper, nuts, and other articles. Mining was also practiced by early Filipinos as evidenced by
Pigafetta's descriptions of vessels and utensils made of pure gold.

If early Spanish accounts were in agreement on the industry of the Filipinos, what then brought
about a change in them? Rizal determines that the circumstances that produced a predisposition towards
laziness were the constant wars waged during the early stages of colonization, the Moro piracies that
occurred in the centuries that followed, and the abuses committed by the Spaniards against the Filipinos.
All the death and destruction brought about by these situations, according to Rizal, took away from the
Filipinos their desire to work.

Yet, Rizal also argues that while the previous circumstances made it possible for laziness to take
root in the Filipino's constitution, other factors ensured its maintenance. Rizal points out that while the
government did not provide the economic and moral incentives to encourage industry among the
Filipinos, the Filipinos themselves also had their own flaws. He states that the defect of education and lack
of national sentiment seen in the Filipinos only contributed to maintaining the Filipino's predisposition
towards indolence.
Having explained the reasons why the Filipinos became lazy, Rizal concludes that all attempts to
reform the Filipino would only be successful with education and freedom. With this, Rizal argues
convincingly that indolence in the Filipinos is not an inherent trait, but rather a malady with its own causes
and cures.