Noli me tangere

Even as a student and a budding physician in Madrid, the twenty- four year old Rizal had already
reached the decision of writing a novel. Where he got the time to do it remains puzzling, since along
with his medical subjects, he was also learning several languages, English from German textbooks,
French from Italian textbooks, and ancient and modern history as well. Eventually, in addition to all of
these, he translated into Tagalog Schiller's William Tell and several fairy tales of Andersen.

Now he wanted to describe the life of his people in a small provincial town in a novel. Did he want to
find a place in the history of his country as a novelist? Was it his intention to add to his numerous talents
as physician, historian, poet, sculptor, that of a literary man as well? Was his work meant as an agitatory
contribution to the freedom fight of the Philippines? Did he plan, did he know what he would evoke with
it, what significance his book would have for the further development of the history of his country?

Questions with no answers. The fact remains that he began writing in Madrid, where he finished about
half of the book, continued the work in Paris, and ended it in Leipzig. He put the final touches on the
book on February 21, 1887.

First of all, however, he had no money for the publication. Since the book was written in Spanish, he
could not hope to publish it in Madrid, since the contents would immediately be censored. At any rate,
no Spanish printer would take the risk. And that outside of Spain, printing in a foreign language was
somewhat expensive. His brother, Paciano, sent him three hundred pesos and in the end, it was the
wealthy Maximo Viola, who, despite the resistance of the modest Rizal, paid the printing expenses of
two thousand copies. Some three weeks later, in the middle of March, the first copies came out of the
printing presses of the "Setzerinnungsschule des Letter-Vereins, Berliner Buchdrukkerei AG" (Guild
school of typesetters, berlin Book Printing Press Co.). The well-known Spanish writer, Vicente Blasco
Ibañez, volunteered his services as consultant and proof reader.

Rizal named his book Noli me tangere, in German Rühre mich nicht an or Berühre mich nicht (in English,
Touch me not). The title has its origin in a famous biblical passage; the Gospel of John, twentieth
chapter, which narrated how Jesus appears to Mary Magdalene after his resurrection. It says in Verse
17: "Then Jesus speaks to her: Touch me not, for I have not yet ascended to My Father. But go to My
brothers and tell them: I am going to My Father, to My God and your God." Rizal had seen in the Prado
Museum in Madrid the famous painting of Corregio which depicts the scene.

Rizal wanted perhaps to express with the novel, that for the first time he was dealing with problems and
conditions, which up to then no one dared to touch on. Or, that the Spanish colonial regime, with its
censor, had not, up to then, given the permission to make reference to these matters. In any case, the
title can only mean that, here, reference was made to a taboo, which up to then was considered
untouchable.

The Noli, as it would soon be called, owing to the Spanish partiality for contractions, and under which
name it is familiarly called today, has, in many ways, autobigraphical features: Crisostomo Ibarra, son of
a wealthy landowner, returns from his studies from Madrid to the provincial town of San Diego, located
near Manila. He does not know that his father, Rafael, was arrested while he was away, because he had
defended a child against the brutaliiy of a tax collector. Rafael dies in prison, but the priest, Padre
Damaso, denies him a Christian burial, because he considers him a free-thinker, who never went to
confession. When the young Ibarra learns of the fate of his father, he immediately want to wreak
vengeance. So then he sets a plan. Instead, he will put up a modern school and will emancipate the
people through liberal education. Ibana has been engaged for a long time, to the daughter of Capitan
Tiago, Maria Clara. Padre Salvi, the new parish priest, however, is himself secretly in love with the girl
and does everything not only to prevent the marriage, but also to get Ibarra out of the way.

At the laying of the cornerstone of the school, Ibarra almost loses his life in an accident, apparently
planned and set in motion intentionally, had he not been saved in the nick of time by the mysterious
boatman, Elias, who later on in the novel is somehow always to appear suddenly, and at the right
moment. Padre Damaso is also an avowed enemy of Ibarra and of his marriage plans. During a banquet
on the occasion of the opening of the school, Damaso hurls such insults against Ibarra's dead father that
Ibarra lunges at the priest. Ibarra is promptly excommunicated because of the assault on the priest. He
is prohibited from seeing his fiancee. In the meantime some native priests of the lower clergy, especially
chaplains, prepare an insurrection.

Here, also, it is obviously a provocation, because not only is the uprising nipped in the bud through the
betrayal of a priest but also the friars spread the rumor that Ibarra led the rebellion and financed it with
his money. Ibarra is arrested, the evidence against him is fabricated through his letters from abroad to
Maria Clara. These letters contain critical remarks against the Spanish rule. And, once again, the
mysterious Elias is at hand to help Ibarra escape from prison. They flee in Elias' boat. On the way, they
are apprehended by constables who open fire. One of the two is killed, though it remains a mystery up
to the end of the novel, whether it is Ibarra or Elias. In the meantime it becomes apparent that Padre
Damaso is in reality the father of Maria Clara. The girl, who thinks that Ibarra is dead, refuses to marry a
relative of the priest and enters the convent.

All of this is depicted in exaggerated melodrama, although occasionally not without humor. According to
present literary concepts, the Noli is a sentimental, trivial novel. To be sure, it conformed to the social
novels of the epoch of a hundred years ago. Rizal himself declared that he was influenced by Dickens,
Zola, and Daudet, but above all, by Alexandre Dumas and his Count of Monte Cristo.

Judged purely by its content, it is difficult to believe that the Noli, in the final analysis, had a similar
signal effect for the Philippine revolution as UncIe Tom's Cabin had for the liberation of the Negro slaves
in North America. The Noli is often compared to this novel.

The comparison becomes evident only when one considers some special features. First of all, Rizal, as
already mentioned, assimilated here many events from his personal history. And even more, as an
innocent, persecuted leader of a revolution, which he neither wanted nor organized, Rizal anticipated
his own action for which, in the end, he paid with his life. In his letters to Blumentritt, Rizal stresses the
fact that every character in the Noli is drawn from real life, that every episode can be repeated on any
day in the Philippines, that he experienced not only the events depicted in the novel but also even much
worse ones.