Module 8

Noli Me Tangere

“There can be no tyrants where there are no slaves.” – Jose Rizal

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 Learning Outcomes
At the end of the lesson, the students will be able to:
1. Describe the context of the publication of the Noli Me Tangere;
2. Appraise important characters in the novel; and,
3. Relate the issues raised in the novel to the changing landscape of the contemporary
world.

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
practical periods of time

plot – the flow of the narrative in a story

Introduction

Jose 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 the 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
process, presents pressing questions about power and social inequalities.

The Publication of the Noli

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

propaganda to campaign from reforms in the Philippines. Utilizing their intellectual prowess, the
ilustrados released various written outputs from news bits, to feature articles, and commentaries.
They also produced creative outputs from satirical pieces to world-class paintings. Within this
artistic and literary collection, Rizal’s exemplary mastery of words are clearly evident in one of
his most celebrated works, his first novel, Noli Me tangere.

The idea of publishing a book was not alien to rizal. In a meeting of the illustrados in 1884,
he proposed to write a book project to be done collaboratively with his fellow writers.

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Unfortunately, the project did not materialize. He eventually decided to write a novel on his own.
He started ti work on the project in 1884 and completed 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, Spolarium, which depicted the sufferings faced by the
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 ilustado, 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 Noli

The title, Noli Me Tangere, had Biblical reference to the Gospel of John in which Jesus
appeared to Mary Magdalene and uttered this words: “Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended to
my Father.” The choice of the 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 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” (Schumacher, 1991, p. 93).

In the initial pages of the Noli, the dedication articulated Rizal’s purpose for writing the
novel:
To The Filipinos

In the Noli Me Tangere, I started to sketch the present state of our Fatherland: the
effect which my attempt produced made me realize, before proceeding to develop before
your eyes other pictures to follow, the necessity of first giving an understanding of the
past in order the better to judge the present and measure the path traversed during the
tree centuries.

Born and reared in ignorance of our past like almost all of you: without voice nor
authority to speak of what we have not seen nor studied I deemed it necessary to invoke
the testimony of an illustrious Spaniard who controlled the destinies of the Philippines at
the beginning of its new era and personally witnessed the last days of our ancient

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 nationality. It is, therefore, the shadow of your ancestors’ civilization which the author
now shall call before you. I transmit to you faithfully his words without changing them
nor mutilating them, adapting, only in so far as possible, to modern orthography and
introducing greater clearness in the rather defective punctuations of the original, to
facilitate its reading. The office, the nationality, and the virtues of Morga, together with
the date and testimonies of his contemporaries, Spaniards for the most part, commend
the work to your serious consideration.

If the book succeeds in awakening in you, the consciousness of our past blotted
from memory, and in rectifying what has been falsified and calumniated then I shall not
have labored in vain, and with this basis, slight though it be, we can all devote ourselves
to the study of the future.

J. Rizal

The project of writing the Noli, as stated, was geared towards exposing the ills of
Philippine colonial society under Spain. Thus, though the passages within Noli, readers also
glimpse of how Rizal saw his country.

The Plot

Juan Crisostomo Ibarra is a young Filipino, who, after studying for seven years in Europe,
returns to his native land to find that his father, a wealthy landowner, has died in prison as the
result of a quarrel with the parish curate, a Franciscan friar named Padre Damaso. Ibarra is
engaged to a beautiful and accomplished girl, Maria Clara, the supposed daughter and only child
of the rich Don Santiago de los Santos, commonly known as "Capitan Tiago," a typical Filipino
cacique, the predominant character fostered by the friar regime.

Ibarra resolves to forego all quarrels and to work for the betterment of his people. To show
his good intentions, he seeks to establish, at his own expense, a public school in his native town.
He meets with ostensible support from all, especially Padre Damaso's successor, a young and
gloomy Franciscan named Padre Salvi, for whom Maria Clara confesses to an instinctive dread.

At the laying of the corner-stone for the new schoolhouse a suspicious accident,
apparently aimed at Ibarra's life, occurs, but the festivities proceed until the dinner, where Ibarra
is grossly and wantonly insulted over the memory of his father by Fray Damaso. The young man
loses control of himself and is about to kill the friar, who is saved by the intervention of Maria
Clara.

Ibarra is excommunicated, and Capitan Tiago, through his fear of the friars, is forced to
break the engagement and agree to the marriage of Maria Clara with a young and inoffensive
Spaniard provided by Padre Damaso. Obedient to her reputed father's command and influenced by

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her mysterious dread of Padre Salvi, Maria Clara consents to this arrangement, but becomes
seriously ill, only to be saved by medicines sent secretly by Ibarra and clandestinely administered
by a girlfriend.

Ibarra succeeds in having the excommunication removed, but before he can explain
matters an uprising against the Civil Guard is secretly brought, about through agents of Padre
Salvi, and the leadership is ascribed to Ibarra to ruin him. He is warned by a mysterious friend, an
outlaw called Elias, whose life he had accidentally saved; but desiring first to see Maria Clara, he
refuses to make his escape, and when the outbreak °ccurs he is arrested as the instigator of it and
thrown into prison in Manila.

On the evening when Capitan Tiago gives a ball in his Manila house to celebrate his
supposed daughter's engagement, Ibarra makes his escape from prison and succeeds in seeing
Maria Clara alone. He begins to reproach her because it is a letter written to her before he went
to Europe which forms the basis of the charge against him, but she clears herself of treachery to
him. The letter had been secured from her by false representations coat in exchange for two others
written by her mother just before her birth, which prove that Padre Damaso is her real father.
These letters had been accidentally discovered in the convento by Padre Salvi, who made use of
them to intimidate the girl and get possession of Ibarra's letter, from which he forged others to
incriminate the young man. She tells him that she will marry the young Spaniard, sacrificing
herself thus to save her mother's name and captain Tiago's honor and to prevent a public scandal,
but that she will always remain true to him.

Ibarra's escape had been effected by Elias, who conveys him in a banka up the Pasig to the
Lake, where they are so closely beset by the Civil Guard that Elias leaps into the water and draws
the pursuers away from the boat, in which Ibarra has concealed.

On Christmas Eve, at the tomb of the Ibarras in a gloomy wood, Elias appears, wounded
and dying, to find there a boy named Basilio beside the corpse of his mother, a poor woman who
had been driven to insanity by her husband’s neglect and abuses on the part of the Civil Guard, her
younger son having disappeared some time before in the convent, where he was a sacristan.
Basilio, who is ignorant of Elias’s identity, helps him to build a funeral pyre, on which his corpse
and the madwoman’s are to be burned. Before Elias died, he instructed Basilio 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, not to forget those who
labored in the night.

Upon learning of the reported death of Ibarra in the chase on the Lake, Maria Clara
becomes disconsolate and begs her supposed godfather, Fray Damaso, to put her in a nunnery.
Unconscious of her knowledge of their true relationship, the friar breaks down and confesses that
all the trouble he has stirred up with the Ibarras has been to prevent her from marrying a native,
which would condemn her and her children to the oppressed and enslaved class. He finally yields
to her entreaties and she enters the nunnery of St. Clara, to which Padre Salvi is soon assigned in
a ministerial capacity.

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 Within the 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.

Activity 1: You Can Judge a Book by its Cover

Approach/Technique: Critical Thinking, Multiple Intelligence, Project Based Approach

Rationale: The proverb says, “You can’t judge a book by its cover.” In this lesson plan, students
are not judging what is inside the book, but what is on the cover itself.

Objectives:
The student will:
a. examine the components of a book cover;
b. interpret the meaning of the book cover;
c. design a new cover for the book based on
their comprehension of the story; and
d. share and explain the new book cover.

Procedures:
A. By looking and examining the original
design cover of Noli Me Tangere, identify
the information contained in it.
B. Answer the following questions:
1. What does this cover teach us about the
novel?
2. Does the illustration suggest a theme of the novel? If so, what is the theme and how
it is depicted on the cover?
3. Do you think that the cover illustration for the novel is effective? Why or why not?
4. If you were the publisher of this novel, would you have chosen this cover for the
book? Why or why not?
Assessment: RUBRIC
3 – Full Accomplishment – Students interpreted the meaning of the book cover in a clear and consistent
manner.
2 – Substantial Accomplishment – Students interpreted the meaning of the book cover and do so in a
somewhat consistent manner.
1 – Little or Partial Accomplishment – Students have difficulty interpreting the meaning of the book
cover consistently.
Extension Activity:
Create or draw an alternative cover for this novel. The illustrations should feature
significant events in the novel. Share and discuss your work with the class.

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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.

Noli After Its First Publication

In the immediate months and years after its release in 1887, the Noli generated reaction
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 Bari-antes, 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 Biumentritt, 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 Bluementritt) 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).

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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 or: how- the Philippine
society could be emancipated from the bondage of colonial rule. 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 the foreigners, 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.

Activity 2: Noli Today

Direction: Imagine yourselves writing an updated version of the Noli Me Tangere today. Juxtapose
your observations about the contemporary society with what Rizal saw in the late nineteenth
century Philippines. In the second column on the table below, write Rizal’s observations about the
aspect mentioned. In the third column, write your own observations of present-day conditions.

Aspect of Society Rizal’s observations as Your observations in

depicted in the Noli Me the present context
Tangere
Government and officials

Church and religion

Education

Romantic relationships
(courtship, marriage, etc.)
Pastimes/hobbies

The rich and the poor

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 Activity 3: Response and Reflection

Based on the output from the first activity, work individually and reflect on your material. Imagine
that you are writing a letter to Jose Rizal. Try to explain to him the differences and similarities you
can point out. In your letter, tell Rizal your thoughts about the following questions:

1. What are the three most salient problems that Philippine society is facing today?
____________________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________________

2. What factors contribute to the persistence of these problems?

____________________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________________

3. What should be done to address these problems?

____________________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________________

References

Alatas, S. F. (2011). “Rizal and the Sociology of Colonial Society.” Conference Paper read at the
Rizal@150 Conference, 22-24 June 2011, University of the Philippines

Anderson Benedict.2008. Why Counting Count: A study of forms of consciousness and problems of
language in Noli me Tangere and El Filibusterismo, pages 1-37. Quezon City: Ateneo de
Manila University Press

Hau, Caroline. 2000. The fiction of a knowable community. Necessary Fictions: Philippine Literature
and the Nation, 1946-1980, 48-93. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press. PS9991
H38

Obias, R., Mallari, A., A., & Estella, J. (2018). The Life and Works of Jose Rizal. Manila: C & E
Publishing, Inc.

Schumacher, Jose 1997. The Noli me Tangere, 1887. The propaganda movement:1880-1895; The
Creators of a Filipino Consciousness, the makers of the revolution,83-104. Quezon City:
Ateneo de Manila Unversity Press.