Thesis Title: Touch Me Not: An Audio Storytelling Production of Noli Me Tangere
Construct/ Variable 1: Audio Storytelling
Book/ Article Title:
BD Dr.(2023). The Rise
and Power of Audio
Storytelling in the 21st
Century: A Critical Review
Speechify (2023) Audio
Storytelling best practices
Author and Year of Notes:
Publication:
BD Dr.(2023) Audio storytelling has the potential to have a significant impact on society. Here are some ways in which audio
storytelling can influence and shape our society:
Education: Audio storytelling can be used as an educational tool, providing a more engaging and accessible way for
people to learn about various topics [34]. From podcasts on science and history to audiobooks on personal
development and business, audio storytelling can provide valuable educational content to listeners.
Empathy: Audio storytelling can help to build empathy and understanding among listeners. By sharing stories and
perspectives from diverse voices and communities, audio storytelling can help to break down stereotypes and
promote empathy and understanding.
Social change: Audio storytelling can be used as a tool for social change, raising awareness of social issues and
inspiring listeners to take action. For example, true crime podcasts have helped to bring attention to injustice within
the criminal justice system.
Mental health: Audio storytelling can also positively impact mental health. Listening to calming and soothing audio
content like guided meditations or calming music can help to reduce stress and anxiety, promoting overall well-being.
Entertainment: Finally, audio storytelling can provide entertainment and relaxation for listeners. Whether it is a true
crime podcast or a fictional audiobook, audio storytelling can provide stresses free of everyday life. Overall, audio
storytelling has the potential to significantly impact society, from education to social change to mental health and
entertainment. By providing a platform for diverse voices and perspectives, audio storytelling can help shape and
positively influence our society.
Description:
In this Article, it shows how audio storytelling helps change the environment and its society.
Speechify (2023) 1. Focus on your audience: Understanding your target audience is crucial. Tailor your content to their
interests, knowledge level, and the platforms they frequently use.
2. Maintain high-quality audio: This goes beyond having a clear voiceover. The sound design, including
 background sounds and music, should be well-balanced and serve to enhance the story, not distract
from it.
3. Create compelling content: Your story should be engaging and relatable. Even the most high-quality

audio can’t make up for a boring story.

4. Promote your content: Leverage social media and other media platforms to spread your audio stories.

Collaborate with influencers or other businesses to reach a larger audience.

5. Keep it interactive: Encourage listener participation. This could be through social media contests, call-

ins, or even live events. Interactive content tends to have higher engagement rates.
6. Monitor your metrics: Pay attention to how your audience is responding. Use this feedback to continually

improve your content.

Description: This source shows the good practices on doing Audio Storytelling production

Jenkins P.(2024) Audio Jenkins P. (2024) The Production Process

Storytelling: Engaging
Techniques for Immersive The production process in audio storytelling is a multi-step endeavor that includes detailed planning and scripting,
Narratives then moves on to recording and careful editing. Some key steps involve:

● Pre-production: This phase encompasses concept development, research, and scriptwriting.

● Recording: Audio producers capture high-quality sound with the right equipment during this stage.
● Post-production: Editors refine the audio, correct errors, and enhance the sound quality to create a final
product.

Description: The Production in Audio Storytelling will determine on editing an audio storytelling.

Voxadm (2022) The Voxadm (2022) Storytelling through podcasting is your most powerful communications tool. Stories hook us. They’re memorable
 Power of Storytelling because they’re relatable. The storyteller may come from a different background or lived experience than us, but their
Through Audio story helps us understand new concepts more powerfully than stand-alone facts

Description: This source helps understand on why audio storytelling is a powerful communication tool

Podger (2024) Tips on Podger (2024)

Script Writing in Audio Write the way you speak: Use everyday language and practice reading your script aloud. Rewrite any phrases or
Stories sentences that sound clunky or too formal.

Capture attention quickly: What’s the most interesting element of your story – the first thing you would tell a friend?
Put this at the beginning of your script.

Limit sentence length: Aim for a maximum word count of 25 words per sentence.

Simplify your sentence structure: Avoid subjective clauses. Keep sentences short and simple. Replace subjective
clauses with full stops. Here is an example: “Paris, a city in France, is located on the River Seine. Instead: “The
French capital of Paris is located on the River Seine”.

Put information in logical order: You can’t go back and “re-listen” to audio in the same way you can re-read
something you didn’t understand when you read it the first time. Make sure you put information in the order in which it
needs to be heard, in order to be understood.

Talk to the audience: Whether you are writing for a podcast or radio show, the fastest way to improve your writing is
to imagine and speak to your typical listener. If your show is about football, imagine a football fan. If your show is
about an issue like climate change, your script should address someone who cares about the environment.

Description: This Source helps on what to do when writing a script for Audio Storytelling.

Construct/ Variable 2: Noli Me Tangere

Book/ Article Title: Author and Year of Notes:

Publication:

Clarisse A.(2019) Noli Me Clarisse A.(2019) Jose Rizal’s Noli Me Tangere tells us that we should reflect on our actions and beliefs for our country. The theme of
Tangere: Wake Up Call the novel is to promote nationalism and to accept change in ourselves is still applies to us today. We must patronize
Book of Revolution our country by respecting the law, promoting Philippine culture, and realizing the true goal of the country by helping
each other towards the improvement of the country. It teaches us the values of wisdom, fighting what is right, and
loving our country. This novel is being taught in school in order to not repeat the history itself by learning how to love
our country and to empower the youth as the catalyst of change for our country. Being a true Filipino is what Jose
Rizal wants us to be, to know who we are and what is our true goals will make the country flourished.
LitCharts. (2017). Noli Me
Tangere Characters from
LitCharts. ‌
LilCharts (2017)
Juan Crisóstomo Ibarra y Magsalin (Ibarra) - A wealthy young man of mixed Spanish and Filipino ancestry who has
recently returned to the Philippines from Europe after spending seven years studying abroad. Ibarra is cultured and
well-respected, though the friars in his hometown of San Diego are suspicious of him. This is because his father Don
Rafael was recently imprisoned and labeled a subversive and heretic, a sentence that eventually led to his death in
jail. Ibarra learns of this on his first night back in the Philippines. Hoping to carry out his father’s dreams, he later
decides to build a secular school in San Diego, one that remains uninfluenced by overzealous friars like Father
Dámaso and Father Salví, Ibarra’s two primary adversaries. Unfortunately, building the school proves a difficult task
due to the fact that Father Salví works together with a number of Ibarra’s enemies to frame him as a conspirator
against the government, ultimately forcing him to flee San Diego as an outlaw revolutionary. This means leaving
behind the love of his life, María Clara, whom he was originally supposed to marry. Ibarra is a politically important
character because Rizal uses him to voice ideas regarding colonialism and the nature of power in the Philippines. For
the majority of the novel, Ibarra believes that, although the Catholic friars and the Spanish government are corrupt,
they provide the Philippines with valuable support. In contrast to his friend Elías (a more drastic revolutionary who
wants to overthrow the country’s prevailing power structures), Ibarra insists upon reforming the Philippines from the
inside out, working with the friars and Spanish officials to bring about positive change without dismantling the system
entirely. However, by the end of the novel, once Ibarra is branded a heretical subversive, his ideas about reform and
revolution begin to align with Elías’s more radical theories.
María Clara - A woman well-regarded in San Diego for her high social station. Having grown up together as childhood
friends, María Clara and Ibarra are engaged to be married, though Father Dámaso—her godfather—is displeased with
this arrangement and does what he can to interfere. When Ibarra is excommunicated after almost killing Dámaso at a
dinner party, arrangements are made for María Clara to marry a young Spanish man named Linares. She doesn’t
speak up against this idea because she doesn’t want to cross her father, Captain Tiago, a spineless socialite who
disavows Ibarra to stay in the good graces of friars like Father Dámaso. Later, María Clara discovers that Captain
Tiago isn’t her real father—rather, Father Dámaso impregnated her mother, who died during childbirth. When Ibarra is
put on trial after being framed as a subversive by Father Salví, María Clara is blackmailed into providing the court with
letters Ibarra has sent her—letters his prosecutors unfairly use as evidence of malfeasance. She does so in order to
keep secret the fact that Dámaso is her biological father, since she doesn’t want to disgrace her mother’s name or
compromise Captain Tiago’s social standing. Still, she feels intense remorse at having sold Ibarra out. When the
newspapers eventually falsely report his death, she calls off her marriage with Linares, instead deciding to enter a
convent because she can’t stand to exist in a world that doesn’t contain Ibarra.

Father Dámaso - A Spanish friar living in the Philippines, Father Dámaso is an arrogant and pedantic priest who,
despite having lived amongst Filipinos and hearing their confessions for over twenty years, is barely able to speak or
understand Tagalog, the country’s native language. A shameless loudmouth, he is unafraid of slandering nonreligious
citizens who he thinks undermine his power. Ibarra learns that this is exactly what happened between his father, Don
Rafael, and Dámaso—because Rafael refused to go to confession and supported secular means of empowering
Filipino citizens, Dámaso jumped at the opportunity to cast Rafael as a heretic and a subversive. As such, Dámaso is
Ibarra’s most evident and outspoken rival, a fact Dámaso seems to leverage by taunting the young man at a dinner
party one night, making allusions to Rafael’s death and insulting Ibarra’s project to build a school. Unfortunately,
Ibarra is unable to ignore these provocations, and his violent response leads to his own excommunication. To make
matters worse for Ibarra, Father Dámaso is very well-connected in San Diego, and he is María Clara’s godfather,
which puts him in a position of power over Ibarra’s engagement (indeed, he forbids her from marrying Ibarra). María
Clara later discovers that Dámaso is her real father, a fact she hopes to keep quiet at all costs because it would
disgrace her deceased mother’s honor and her father’s respectability, so Dámaso gets away with his corruption.

Elías - An outlaw and vagabond revolutionary who resents the power the Catholic church and Spanish government
have over the Philippines. After Ibarra saves his life from a vicious crocodile, Elías swears to protect the young man
from his enemies, which are legion. Lurking in the town in the disguise of a day laborer, Elías discovers plots against
Ibarra and does everything he can to thwart them. He also tries to convince Ibarra to join him and a band of
disenchanted revolutionaries who want to retaliate against the abusive Civil Guard that empowers the church and
oppresses the people it claims to govern. He and Ibarra engage in long political discussions throughout the novel,
each character outlining a different viewpoint regarding the nature of national growth and reform. Elías urges his friend
to see that nothing productive will come of working within the existing power structures, since the church and
government are both so corrupt and apathetic when it comes to actually improving the Philippines. Ibarra is more
conservative and doesn’t agree with Elías’s drastic opinions until he himself experiences persecution at the hands of
the country’s most powerful institutions, at which point he agrees with his friend and accepts his fate as a committed
subversive revolutionary.

Father Salví

A serious and committed Spanish friar who takes over Father Dámaso’s post in San Diego as the town’s priest. Fray

Salví is a meticulous and cunning man who uses his religious stature for political influence, benefitting both himself

and the church. He is often at odds with the town’s military ensign, volleying back and forth for power over San Diego

and its citizens. While preaching, he will often have his sextons (people who tend the church grounds) lock the doors

so that listeners, and especially the ensign, must sit through long sermons. Unlike other priests, he refrains from

frequently beating noncompliant townspeople, though he applies excruciating might on the rare occasions he does

resort to violence. On the whole, though, he asserts his influence by engineering behind-the-scenes plans to defame

his enemies. For instance, to ruin Ibarra—who is engaged to María Clara, the woman Father Salví secretly loves—he

organizes a violent rebellion against the Civil Guards and frames Ibarra as the ringleader. Just before the bandits

descend upon the town, Salví rushes to the ensign’s house and warns him of the imminent attack, thereby portraying

himself as a hero concerned with the town’s wellbeing.

Captain Tiago (Don Santiago de los Santos) - A Filipino socialite and well-respected member of the country’s
wealthy elite. Close with high-ranking clergy members like Father Salví and Father Dámaso, Captain Tiago is one of
the richest property owners in Manila and San Diego. He is concerned with making sure his daughter, María Clara,
marries an affluent man with ample social capital, which is one of the reasons he so quickly abandons his support of
Ibarra when the friars disgrace the young man’s name. As for his own disgrace, Captain Tiago is not actually María
Clara’s biological father—rather, his wife had an affair with Father Dámaso before dying in childbirth. This is perhaps
why he is so concerned with keeping up the appearance of respectability, for his own wife dishonored him. As such,
he is blind to the vapid posturing of people like Doctor de Espadaña, a fraudulent doctor for rich people, and his wife,
Doña Victorina, an obvious social climber. When they present their nephew Linares as a possible new match for
María Clara, Captain Tiago is quick to assent, thinking that such a pairing will ensure respectability.

The Ensign - A Spaniard in charge of the Civil Guard in San Diego. The ensign has a bitter relationship with Father
Salví, since he thinks Father Salví takes his position too seriously. To retaliate against Salví (who uses his religious
authority to control the ensign), the ensign enforces curfews that make it difficult for the citizens of San Diego to attend
church at the proper times. Given to excessive drinking and unnecessary displays of power, the ensign is married to a
strong-willed Filipina woman named Doña Consolación, with whom he fights day in and day out.

Old Tasio (Don Anastasio) - An old man who used to study philosophy and who prefers secular knowledge to
Catholicism. This atheistic worldview attracts attention from the friars and pious townspeople, who call him a
“madman” (or, if they are being kind, “Tasio the Philosopher”). Tasio respects Ibarra and hopes dearly that Ibarra will
succeed in building a school that is independent of the church. When Ibarra comes to Tasio for advice, though, Tasio
counsels the young man to avoid talking to him, fearing that it will hinder the project to build a school. He tells Ibarra
that people call anybody who disagrees with their own beliefs a “madman,” which means that Ibarra should seek the
approval of the friars and government officials before starting to build the school. This, he tells the young man, will
make it seem as if he actually cares what these powerful and influential leaders think, though this attitude need only
appear to be true. On the whole, Tasio is an extreme representation of what it is to live without caring what other
people think: though he enjoys a certain freedom of thought, he also isolates himself from the rest of the community,
ultimately dying alone with nobody to empathize with his lifelong struggle toward reason and intellectual liberation

Don Rafael Ibarra - Ibarra’s father, who has died before the novel’s opening pages. Ibarra learns from a sympathetic
friend of his father’s, Lieutenant Guevara, that Don Rafael perished in prison after Father Dámaso accused him of
heresy and subversion. These accusations surfaced because Don Rafael refused to attend confession, thinking it
useless and instead trying to live according to his own moral compass, which was, Lieutenant Guevara says,
incredibly strong and respectable. As such, Father Dámaso started making allusions to Ibarra’s father while
preaching. Not long thereafter, Don Rafael came across a government tax collector beating a little boy. When he
intervened, he accidentally killed the collector and was subsequently imprisoned. This is when Father Dámaso and a
handful of Don Rafael’s other enemies came forward and slandered his name. Lieutenant Guevara hired a lawyer, but
by the time he’d cleared the old man’s name, Don Rafael had died in his cell. He was buried in San Diego’s catholic
cemetery, but Ibarra eventually learns that Father Dámaso ordered a gravedigger to exhume his body and transport
him to the Chinese cemetery in order to separate him from non-heretical Catholics. Not wanting to haul his body all
the way to the Chinese cemetery and thinking that the lake would be a more respectable resting place, the
gravedigger threw Don Rafael’s body into the lake.

Crispín - A very young boy studying to be a sexton, or a caretaker of the church. Crispín and his brother Basilio work
tirelessly to send money home to their mother, Sisa, who is married to a drunk gambler who provides nothing in the
way of financial or even emotional support. Unfortunately, the chief sexton falsely accuses Crispín of stealing money
from the church. This means that the boy has to work extra hard to make up his debt, though his elders are constantly
fining him for minor or invented infractions. One night, he and his brother are supposed to go home to visit their
mother for the first time in a week, but the chief sexton interferes with their plans, ordering that they stay past dark and
past the town’s curfew. When Crispín points out that this will make it impossible for them to visit Sisa, the sexton hauls
him away and beats him severely. This is the last time he is seen, and one can presume he died at the hands of a
merciless sexton or priest, though a church member tells Sisa that Crispín stole from the church and escaped in the
night.

Basilio - Crispín’s older brother, who is also training to be a sexton. When Crispín is dragged away, Basilio tries to
find him unsuccessfully. Despite the town’s curfew, he runs home to his mother and spends the night there, telling her
that the next day he will seek out Ibarra and ask if he can work for him instead of training to be a sexton. This never
transpires, though, because the Civil Guard comes looking for him and his brother. Basilio escapes from this mother’s
house and into the forest, where he lives with a kind family until Christmas Eve, when he goes looking for Sisa. Upon
finding her, he discovers that she has gone crazy with grief and is unable to recognize him. He follows her back into
 the woods, where she eventually dies after finally understanding that he is her son.

Doctor Tiburcio de Espadaña - A Spaniard who speaks with a stutter and looks significantly older than his thirty-five
years. Don Tiburcio came to the Philippines as a customs officer, but was dismissed upon his arrival. Having very little
money to his name, he went to the country provinces of the Philippines to practice medicine, despite the fact that he
had no training as a doctor. Nonetheless, because he charged exorbitant amounts of money, people came to think of
him as one of the country’s best doctors. After some time, the townspeople discovered his fraudulence and he was
forced to find another means of survival. When María Clara falls ill, though, Tiburcio is once again falsely practicing
medicine. His new wife Doña Victorina is a fierce social climber, so she convinced him to go back to medicine,
advising him only to take on extremely well-respected patients. This is why Captain Tiago chooses him to attend to
María Clara.

Description: This Source helps understand the description of the characters of the popular novel noli me tangere

Wikibooks (2024) Noli Me Wikibooks (2024) After publication, Noli me Tangere was considered to be one of the instruments that initiated Filipino nationalism
Tangere leading to the 1896 Philippine Revolution. The novel did not only awaken sleeping Filipino awareness, but also
established the grounds for aspiring to independence.

Description: This Source tells us on why Noli Me Tangere became the most important novel in Philippine History

Gradesaver (2024) Gradesaver(2024)

Religion

Religion takes many forms in Noli Me Tángere. Most obviously, Catholicism is visible in the organized system of the
church and its hierarchy. Yet even the clergy often do not truly believe in their religious ideals—Father Salví, for
example, is lustful despite being a priest, and he seems to care about his position only because of the power it gives
him. Similarly, the seemingly devout Captain Tiago actually cares little about religion except as a means of obtaining
power, and he creates the image of being devout by paying others to pray for him. In reality, his belief system leans
more towards polytheism, which is deeply contrary to Catholicism. Other figures, such as Elías and the elder Ibarra,
hold strong Catholic convictions despite their opposition to the church and its demands. Rafael Ibarra opposes
confession on an ethical level, while Elías is against the church hierarchy but believes strongly in God. Despite his
loathing of the Spanish colonial system, Elías is grateful to the Spaniards for bringing Catholicism, which he views as
the truth, to the Philippines, and indeed no character criticizes the Spanish for imposing their religion on others.

Power

Struggles for power and abuses of power comprise the majority of the conflicts in Noli Me Tángere. Father Salví and
the ensign each use the power that they have to try to eclipse the other’s authority—for example, the ensign creates a
curfew so Father Salví can’t have mass at night. It is the ordinary townspeople, however, who are harmed in this fight
for power—the utterly powerless young sextons are caught between the church’s demands that they stay at work late
and the government’s demands that they not stay out past a certain hour at night. Abuses of power are also rampant:
Rafael Ibarra was slandered as “heretic and subversive” and died in prison because his religious ideals differed from
those of the organized church, and his body was later exhumed from the cemetery at Father Dámaso’s order.
Similarly, the younger Ibarra is excommunicated because of Father Dámaso’s grudge against him, which costs him his
engagement and his position in society. Throughout the novel, the church and the government fight for power as well.

Radicalism vs. incrementalism

Though both Ibarra and Elías are in favor of significant changes to Philippine society, they disagree about the best
means to achieve these changes. Ibarra generally wants to work within existing systems, such as going through
established channels and using diplomacy (such as manipulating officials into thinking he is complying with their
suggestions regarding the school) to attain his goals, which tend to be less radical than Elías’s. In contrast, Elías
favors a more extreme strategy, and he often points out that Ibarra’s generally happy, comfortable life allows him to
have faith in the systems that have proved useless or worse to many other people. Yet as the novel progresses, Elías
emerges as a more moderate figure in comparison to the truly radical Captain Pablo, who favors violent insurrection
against the Spanish colonial regime. Elías fears that Philippine society is not yet ready for this sort of violence, though
he does not necessarily oppose it on a philosophical level, and worries that it will hurt the very people he hopes to
advocate for.

Education

In Noli Me Tángere, education is portrayed as an important means of fighting oppression. Despite his mestizo
heritage, Ibarra is able to become a prominent, respected member of the community because of the education he
obtains in Europe, which allows him to create new opportunities for the next generation of Filipino youth by creating a
school for them. Yet the power of education has limits. For example, the church prevents Filipinos from learning
Spanish in school, which essentially prevents them from obtaining the most prestigious jobs in the colonial society.
Furthermore, though he is highly educated, Tasio is ridiculed by most of society because his values and ideas differ
from those of the norm. In addition, Rizal shows that the revolutionary potential of education is limited. Despite the
education he has obtained, Ibarra is naive when it comes to understanding the extent of the oppression Filipinos face
in colonial society, and he requires a great deal of informal education from his friend Elías before he can truly be
proud to be a “subversive.”
Family and honor

Family is extremely important in Noli Me Tángere. After his father’s death, Ibarra must decide how best to honor his
legacy, setting out to build a school that his father would have loved. When Ibarra is excommunicated, the Captain
General advocates for him in part because he admires Ibarra’s desire to honor the memory of his father. Ibarra’s own
family history is also closely intertwined with the history of San Diego more broadly. In addition, María Clara’s life is
also shaped by her attempts to honor her parents, Captain Tiago and her late mother. She almost marries a man she
does not love because she doesn’t want to cause a conflict with them, and ultimately she betrays Ibarra because she
doesn’t want to dishonor her mother by revealing her mother’s affair with Father Dámaso, which she learns she is the
product of. Elías is also motivated by his family’s history. He grows up wealthy, but when he is revealed to be the son
of a poor but virtuous man, he is dishonored and loses everything, and his sister is soon killed. These experiences
deeply influence Elías's decision to rebel against the Spanish regime in the Philippines.

Sacrifice

Early in the novel, Ibarra declares that every country’s prosperity, or lack thereof, is proportionate to its freedoms and
the sacrifices of its ancestors, an idea that Father Dámaso dismisses as obvious. Yet throughout Noli Me Tángere,
Ibarra learns how to make such sacrifices so that the Philippines will one day be great and free. In the letter he sends
María Clara before leaving for Europe, Ibarra quotes his father as telling him that he should “sacrifice today for a
useful tomorrow,” both in his personal life (leaving María Clara to study) and more broadly, in a political sense. This
line is ambiguous, but throughout the novel, Ibarra comes to realize his father’s dream, risking his life to improve the
conditions of his community. Elías ultimately dies as a result of his fight for the Filipino people, and he emphasizes
the importance of honoring the sacrifice of people like him to Basilio, urging him not to forget “those who fell during
the nighttime,” before the sun could rise.

Privilege

Throughout Noli Me Tángere, Ibarra’s allies, such as Elías and Tasio, point to his relative privilege as a wealthy man
with Spanish (as well as Filipino) heritage in the colonial Philippines as an obstacle to him truly understanding the pain
of the Filipino people. Indeed, Ibarra is reluctant to comprehend the extent of the corruption of the government and
church, resolving to improve his people’s conditions by working through the system rather than against it. Yet privilege
proves to be fleeting and fickle. For example, Elías loses all of his wealth and social status when it is revealed that he
is in fact the son of a poor man. Similarly, after Ibarra is slandered as the leader of a rebellion, his former friends
quickly cut ties with him and he is imprisoned for treason, events that recall the campaign of slander against his
father, who had been in conflict with the town’s priest. Ultimately, this experience opens Ibarra’s eyes to the true
extent of the corruption. Furthermore, Ibarra repeatedly shows himself to be open-minded, listening to the experiences
of friends like Elías, who are less privileged, and taking their opinions into account. In this manner, Rizal illustrates that
privilege can be insulating, but not completely so.
 Isolation

All the characters in Noli Me Tángere are physically isolated from the seat of the Spanish empire in Spain, living far
away in the colonial Philippines. Because of this isolation, Spaniards are able to take advantage of the distance from
Spain, manufacturing credentials that no one can check to verify. Filipinos, on the other hand, are disadvantaged by
this isolation, as corruption runs rampant and they are forced to travel all the way to Europe to pursue education or
further opportunities. (Author José Rizal himself was isolated in this manner, only able to write Noli Me Tángere in
Europe and immediately finding himself persecuted upon his return to the Philippines.) Religious isolation also plays a
major role in the novel. The elder Ibarra finds himself cut off from the rest of the community when Father Dámaso, his
town’s priest, turns against him, and these events ultimately lead to his death, illustrating the profound consequences
of this sort of isolation. Finally, the character of Tasio, who is perceived to be a madman, isolates himself from the
rest of the San Diego community. While his isolation allows Tasio to pursue his free-thinking ideas, it also limits the
impact he can have on the struggle for Philippine freedom—Tasio ultimately dies alone on the threshold of his lonely
home, a sharp contrast to Elías’s heroic death for the country.

Revenge

Over the course of the novel, Rizal shows revenge to be a deeply flawed source of motivation, though it can be an
understandable one. Ibarra is frequently tempted to exercise revenge against Father Dámaso, who dishonored and
indirectly killed his father, but he ultimately decides to redirect this energy towards fighting for his community, as his
father would have wanted. Similarly, Elías is tempted to attack Ibarra when he learns that he is the descendant of the
man who ruined the lives of Elías’s ancestors, but he too ultimately decides to let the conflict pass and fight for the
future instead. In contrast, Társilo’s fate shows the futility of revenge—as he attempts to rebel to avenge his father’s
death, he is caught and killed, showing that vengeance ultimately hurts those who seek it. Revenge is also shown to
hurt people outside the conflict, such as the cycle of revenge between Father Salví and the Ensign, which destroys the
lives of Sisa’s sons.

Description: This Source are themes involved in Noli me Tangere

Francia L. (2023) Noli Me Francia L. (2023) The plot revolves around Crisostomo Ibarra, mixed-race heir of a wealthy clan, returning home after seven
Tangere (Touch me not) years in Europe and filled with ideas on how to better the lot of his countrymen. Striving for reforms, he is
Reading Guide
confronted by an abusive ecclesiastical hierarchy and a Spanish civil administration by turns indifferent and
cruel. The novel suggests, through plot developments, that meaningful change in this context is
exceedingly difficult, if not impossible.

The death of Ibarra’s father, Don Rafael, prior to his homecoming, and the refusal of a Catholic burial by
Padre Damaso, the parish priest, provokes Ibarra into hitting the priest, for which Ibarra is
excommunicated. The decree is rescinded, however, when the governor general intervenes. The friar and
his successor, Padre Salvi, embody the rotten state of the clergy. Their tangled feelings—one paternal, the
other carnal—for Maria Clara, Ibarra’s sweetheart and rich Capitan Tiago’s beautiful daughter, steel their
determination to spoil Ibarra’s plans for a school. The town philosopher Tasio wryly notes similar past
attempts have failed, and his sage commentary makes clear that all colonial masters fear that an
enlightened people will throw off the yoke of oppression.

Precisely how to accomplish this is the novel’s central question, and one which Ibarra debates with the
mysterious Elias, with whose life his is intertwined. The privileged Ibarra favors peaceful means, while Elias,
who has suffered injustice at the hands of the authorities, believes violence is the only option.

Ibarra’s enemies, particularly Salvi, implicate him in a fake insurrection, though the evidence against him is
weak. Then Maria Clara betrays him to protect a dark family secret, public exposure of which would be
ruinous. Ibarra escapes from prison with Elias’s help and confronts her. She explains why, Ibarra forgives
her, and he and Elias flee to the lake. But chased by the Guardia Civil, one dies while the other survives.
Convinced Ibarra’s dead, Maria Clara enters the nunnery, refusing a marriage arranged by Padre Damaso.
Her unhappy fate and that of the more memorable Sisa, driven mad by the fate of her sons, symbolize the
country’s condition, at once beautiful and miserable.

Using satire brilliantly, Rizal creates other memorable characters whose lives manifest the poisonous
effects of religious and colonial oppression. Capitan Tiago; the social climber Doña Victorina de Espadaña
and her toothless Spanish husband; the Guardia Civil head and his harridan of a wife; the sorority of devout
women; the disaffected peasants forced to become outlaws: in sum, a microcosm of Philippine society. In
the afflictions that plague them, Rizal paints a harrowing picture of his beloved but suffering country in a
work that speaks eloquently not just to Filipinos but to all who have endured or witnessed oppression.

Description: This Source tells about the plot of the Novel Noli Me Tangere