NOLI ME TANGERE

T o u c h M e N o t
When was the year of publication 1 8 8
of the book? 7
It was inspired John
from? 20: 17
How many chapters does the 63
book consists? chapters
and an
epilogue
 REACTION Arch. Pedro
S Payo forwarded
a copy of the
book to Gov-
Gen. Father
Emilio
Salvador Font
Terrero.
FERDINAND
BLUMENTRITT
recommended
“ L e t i t s u ffi c e t o
ENRIQUE say that it has
forThe
a complete
book was
ROGERS aroused great prohibition
completelyof
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the book.
few who have public and in the
known how to
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photographic Rizal’s Noli Me
reproduction of Tangere played a
ANTONIO REGIDOR part, if not all, of
crucial role in the
CHARACTERS
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SUMMARY

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.”
SUMMARY

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.
SUMMARY

At the laying of the cornerstone 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.
SUMMARY

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 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 girl friend.
SUMMARY

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 page occurs, he is
arrested as the instigator of it and thrown into prison in Manila.
SUMMARY

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 and in exchange for two others written by her
mother just before her birth, which prove that Padre Damaso is her real
father.
SUMMARY

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 Capitan Tiago’s honor and
to prevent a public scandal, but that she will always remain true to him.
SUMMARY

Padre Salvi, Ibarra’s mortal enemy accused Ibarra of insurrection.

Ibarra’s letter to his beloved Maria Clara was used against him.
Later in the story, Maria Clara will tell Ibarra that she did not
conspire to indict him. She was compelled to give Ibarra’s letter in
exchange for the letters of her mother before she was born. Maria
Clara found out that the letters of her mother were addressed to
Padre Damaso about their unborn child which means that she is
the biological daughter of the priest and not of her father, Capitan
Tiago.
SUMMARY

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 lies concealed.
SUMMARY

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 page
disappeared some time before in the convento, 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.
SUMMARY

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.
THEMES

COLONIALISM, RELIGION, AND POWER. José Rizal’s political

novel Noli Me Tangere examines how Spain’s colonization of the
Philippines allowed the Catholic church to dominate and rule the
region. Colonialism produced tensions that would, roughly a
decade after Rizal’s novel was published, lead Filipino natives to
revolt against Spain’s oppressive religious and governmental
bodies in the Philippine Revolution.
THEMES

Through Ibarra, the book’s protagonist who returns to the Philippines

after having spent seven years in Europe, Rizal shows the shocking
extent to which the Catholic friars have commandeered the country’s
politics and culture, manipulating the lives of Filipino citizens in an
attempt to assert authority and influence. Thus, Rizal illustrates the
Catholic priests’ corruption and their unchecked power, which doesn’t
stem from actual religious zeal, but rather from a love of supremacy that
colonization has enabled and encouraged.
THEMES

ISOLATION. One of the primary ways characters in Noli Me Tangere are

disempowered is through isolation: political isolation, religious isolation,
or intellectual isolation. Politically, all of the characters are isolated from
Spain, the governing body that controls the Philippines. While the friars
take advantage of this remoteness, the townspeople suffer. Religiously,
any character who disagrees with Catholic doctrine is isolated and
labeled a heretic.
THEMES

This religious seclusion is often related to intellectual isolation, which

characters like Tasio experience when they openly voice an affinity for
alternative ideas, such as those promoted by philosophy or logical
reasoning. For Tasio, intellectual isolation almost seems liberating, since
he embraces his status as a supposed “madman” and is therefore free
to think whatever he wants. However, Rizal ultimately implies that
estrangement and the loss of community most often lead to
disenfranchisement and woe.
THEMES
REVOLUTION AND REFORM. Because Spanish friars and the
Spanish colonial government had such control over the
Philippines, Rizal naturally focuses much of his attention on the
possibility of political change. He outlines two schools of thought
for making political change: the moderate liberalism embodied by 
Ibarra, and the radical revolutionary ideology espoused by Elías.
THEMES

The first approach advocates for reform that would take place within the
context of the oppressive religious and governmental forces that already
exist in the Philippines. According to this point of view, there is still
something worth salvaging in the prevailing system. The second
approach—championed by Elías—argues for a complete overthrow of
the existing power structures, which are irrevocably flawed and
incapable of organic change. These opposing viewpoints run throughout
the novel, posing an important question about political and cultural
transformation: is it better to change a corrupt system from within, or is
it better to completely overthrow it using whatever means necessary?
THEMES

EDUCATION. Rizal holds up education as a way of overcoming

oppression. Ibarra, who is a respected figure because of the fact that he
studied in Europe, fiercely advocates the importance of intellect and
education by building a school in San Diego. In doing so, he seeks to
give the townspeople a means of empowerment outside the context of
the church.
THEMES

Unfortunately, though, the friars are suspicious of such endeavors, so

Ibarra must convince them that his educational ambitions are closely
related to their own religious values. When it becomes clear that his
allegiances do not lie with the church, however, the friars do everything
in their power to covertly derail his effort to spread secular knowledge.
As such, Rizal pits religion and education against one another,
portraying religion as an oppressive force and education as a liberating
force in the colonized Philippines.