NOLI ME

TANGERE
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 NOLI ME TANGERE
✣ Jose Rizal’s first novel Noli Me Tangere exposes the
abuses and inequities of many Spanish Catholic
friars and government during his time
✣ Rizal was a student of medicine at the Universidad
Central de Madrid when he started writing it and
was 26 years old at its publication
✣ Published in early 1887 in Europe, the novel is
commonly called by its shortened name Noli; its
English translation is usually titled Touch Me Not
and The Social Cancer.
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 WRITING OF THE NOVEL
✣ Influenced by Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s
Cabin.
✣ Jose Rizal planned to publish a book that would
reveal the ills of Spanish-colonized Philippine
Society.
✣ In January 1884, Rizal suggested the creation of the
book.
✣ In January 2 1884, It was unanimously approved by
those present at the reunion, among whom were the
Paternos ( Pedro, Maximino, and Antonio ), Graciano
Lopez Jaena, Valentin Ventura, Eduardo de Lete,
Evaristo Aguirre, and Julio Llorente.
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 WRITING OF THE NOVEL
✣ But afterwards difficulties and objections were raised which seemed
to me rather odd, and a number of gentlemen stood up and refused
to discuss the matter any further
✣ He noticed that his compatriots were more interested in writing about
women instead and in spending time gambling or flirting with
Spanish women.
✣ Rizal started writing alone the novel in Madrid toward the end of the
same year and finished about half of it in the city.
✣ Leaving for France in 1885, he had written the third quarter of the
novel in Paris. The novel was completed in Berlin, Germany at the
end of 1886, and the final draft was ready for publication at the onset
of the year 1887.
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 PRINTING OF NOLI
✣ The transition between 1886 and 1887 was perhaps
one of the most stressful parts in Rizal’s life. He
actually had in his heart the fear that it might not be
published at all.
✣ Rizal would not ask his co-Filipinos in Europe for
financial help, especially because none of them
supported him in writing the Noli.
✣ Thankfully, Dr. Maximo Viola went to Germany to invite
Rizal to accompany him on Europe tour, But upon
learning Rizal’s quandary, the kind Viola decided to
delay the tour and insisted on lending Rizal some
money so that the Noli could be published.
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 PRINTING OF NOLI

✣ The P300 Viola lent to Rizal was thus used to

print the first 2,000 copies of the Noli.
✣ In some references, Noli Me Tangere officially
came off the press on March 29 1887, although
records also showed that by March 21. Rizal
was already sending Blumentritt a copy of the
novel.
✣ Maximo Viola had fittingly gone down in
Philippine history as “ The savior of the Noli”

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 Synopsis
✣ The young and idealistic Juan Crisostomo Ibarra returns home after seven years
in Europe. The wealthy meztizo, like his father Don Rafael endeavors for reform
primarily in the area of education in order to eliminate poverty and improve the
lives of his countrymen. Upon learning about his father’s demise and the denial
of a Catholic burial for his father Ibarra was provoked to hit Padre Damaso
which eventually lead to his excommunication. The excommunication was later
rescinded upon the intervention of the Governor General.
✣ 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.
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 Synopsis
✣ Meanwhile, Ibarra was able to escape the prison with Elias, who also experienced
injustice with the authorities. Ibarra was able to speak with Maria Clara about the
letters and thereafter forgave her. Ibarra and Elias flee to the lake and were chased
by the Guardia Civil. One was shot and the other survives. Upon hearing the news,
Maria Clara believed that Ibarra was dead; she entered the nunnery instead of
marrying Alfonso Linares.
✣ The fatally wounded Elias found the child Basilio and his dead mother Sisa. The latter
was driven to insanity when she learned that her children were implicated for theft by
the sacristan mayor. Elias instructed Basilio to dig for his and Sisa’s graves and there
is a buried treasure which he can use for his education.
✣ Noli Me Tangere brilliantly described Philippine society with its memorable characters.
The melancholic fate of Maria Clara and the insanity of Sisa characterized the
country’s pitiful state, which was once beautiful, turned miserable. Reading Noli Me
Tangere will open one’s mind about oppression and tyranny.
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 The Spirit of the Noli

✣ Noli Me Tangere creatively depics the real conditions of

the various aspects of Filipino society under the Spanish
regime. Largely because of corrupt Spanish officials and
friars.
✣ Introducing the spirit of the novel to his friend Ferdinand
Blumentritt, Rizal himself wrote.
✣ The Novel is the first impartial and bold account of the life
of the Tagalogs.
✣ The novel’s characters represent the various kinds of
people inhabiting the country at the same time.

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 The Spirit of the Noli
✣ Crisostomo Ibarra represents the small group of Filipinos who had a chance to
study abroad and dreamt of improving the country
✣ Padre Damaso corresponds to wicked but ironically respected priest
✣ Capitan Tiago represents the rich Filipinos who opted to be allies.
✣ Sisa and her sons Crispin and Basilio epitomize a Filipino family oppressed by
the Spanish autorities.
✣ Dona Victorina represents some ambitious Filipinos who wanted to be classified
as Spanish.
✣ Padre Salvi represents the seemingly kind but in fact wicked Spanish Friars
✣ Don Rafael Ibarra epitomizes the rich and at the same time virtuous and
generous Filipinos during the Spanish era.

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 Reactions to Noli
✣ Non-Filipino defenders of the Noli included Ferdinand Blumentritt, Dr. Miguel
Morayta, Federico Faura, told the Noli’s authors that “ everything in it was the
truth but also foretold.
✣ During Rizal’s first homecoming in 1887, Governor General Emilio Terrero
summoned him to the Malacanan Palace a few days after his arrival.
✣ Terrero told Rizal that Bernandino Nozaleda petitioned to ban the Noli.
✣ Terrero found nothing “criminal” in the book.
✣ Ad hoc committee of the faculty of UST found and denounced Noli as
ecclesiastically heretical, impious and scandalous and politically unpatriotic,
subversive of public order and harmful to the Spanish government and its
administration in the Philippines.

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