CHAPTER XI: NATIONALISTIC NOVELS

THE PUBLICATION OF RIZAL’S FIRST NOVEL

Rizal completed his novel in Berlin on February 21, 1887 and had it
printed at Berlin Buchdrukrei Action Gesselschaft. At the time of the novel’s
publication , Rizal developed lung ailment because of malnutrition as he was
eating only 1 meal a day due to lack of money. In the midst 0f his misery, he
received a telegram from Dr. maximo Viola, who was coming to Berlin. Dr.
Viola saved Noli Me Tangere by lending Rizal P300.00 for the printing of 2,000
copies of the novel.

Rizal sent the first copies of his first novel to Ferdinand Blumentritt,
Antonio Maria Regidor, Graciano Lopez-Jaena, Mariano Ponce, and Felix
Resurreccion-Hidalgo. Then Spanish senators Jose Salamanca, Luis M. de
Pando, and Fernando Vida severely criticized the novel, but Segismundo Moret,
a Spaniard who was a former minister of the Spanish King, defended it. Dr.
Miguel Morayta, Dr. Ferdinand Blumentritt, and Fr. Vicente Garcia also
publicly defended the novel, but Fr. Salvador Font lashes at it and recommended
that it be banned from circulation in the Philippines.
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 THE PUBLICATION OF RIZAL’S FIRST NOVEL

Literally translated, the Latin words Noli Me Tangere mean “touch me

not”, a line purportedly taken from Luke’s Gospel(it was actually taken from John
201:17), told by Jesus To Mary Magdalene when the latter attempted to touch
Him after his resurrection. The modern English translations of the novel have
ben published with the titles Social Cancer (1940) and Lost Eden (1998), and it has
also been translated in Tagalog for Filipino students.
The book’s cover was designed by Rizal himself. It’s left side shows the
best in the Filipinos: their chaste women, as represented by the silhouette of a
woman in a traditional Filipino dress; their fidelity, symbolized by pomelo
blossoms; their honor, symbolize by laurel leaves; their religious fervor,
symbolized by a cross; their desire for education, symbolized by a lighted lamp;
and the Filipino youth, a source of hope, symbolized by sunflowers following the
sun. On the lower right side of the book, on the other hand, are the worst ills that
the Spanish colonizers gave the Filipinos; the Spanish friars (represented by the
hairy legs, believed to be those of Spanish friars), the Guardia Civil, and the cruel
treatment of the natives (represented by the chains and whips for torturing native
prisoners).Jose Rizal himself is represented by the bamboo (drawn close to his
name asDate
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novel’s author), the most resilient of the grasses.

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 Rizal dedicated his first novel to his beloved Philippines (“To my
Fatherland”). His dedication runs as follows:

TO MY FATHERLAND

Recorded in the history of human sufferings is a cancer so malignant that the least touch
irritates it and awakens in it the sharpest pains.
Thus, how many times, when in the midst of modern civilizations,
I have wished to call thee before me, now to accompany me in
memories, now to compare thee with other countries, hath thy dear image presented itself
showing a social cancer like to no other!

Desiring thy welfare, which is our own, and seeking the best treatment,
I will do with thee what the ancients did with their sick, exposing
them on the steps of the temple so that every one who came to invoke
the Divinity might offer them a remedy.

And to this end, I will strive to reproduce thy condition faithfully,

without discriminations; I will raise a part of the veil that covers the evil,
sacrificing
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also suffer from thy defects and weaknesses.
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 THE CHARACTERS OF NOLI ME TANGERE

o Crisostomo Ibarra, the courageous , civic-minded, liberty-loving, and

patriotic son of a wealthy landlord and a liberal European-educated Filipino.
o Crispin, the younger of the 2 sacristan (sextons) of the church in San Diego
who was falsely accused of stealing 32 pesos worth of gold from the church
and was tortured and not allowed to go home until his payment of the same.
o Basilio, the elder of 2 sacristan of the church in San Diego
o Maria Clara, the lovely woman bethrothed to Crisostomo Ibarra, baptized
“Maria Clara” in homor of the Virgin of Salambaw and Sta. Clara.
o Padre Damaso, a vociferous Franciscan priest who is the main villain in the
novel and who Maria Clara told Ibarra was her real father.
o Doña Pia Alba, Maria Clara’s mother and the wife of Capitan Tiago, a rich
Binondo proprietor and Pampanga and Laguna landlord; she fell victim to
Padre Damaso and bore a child by him (Maria Clara).
o Elias, a victim of injustice whose incidental story is interwoven with the main
plot of the novel.
o Capitan Tiago, a rich landowner whose wealth makes him an oligarch; he
represents
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thee Filipinos during the Spanish times in the Philippines who
submitted themselves to the whims of the authorities to secure their personal
interest.
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 THE CHARACTERS OF NOLI ME TANGERE

o Don Rafael Ibarra, Crisostomo’s father, a rich landlord with a social

conscience .
o Sisa, a loving wife and mother, whose tragic life story is interwoven with the
novel’s plot; her husband was her god, and her children, her angels.
o Padre Salvi, a Spanish friar who is secretly in love with Maria Clara and who
thus plots to eliminate Ibarra, her fiancé.
o Señor Pasta, an affluent lawyer who was once a servant of the friars, and a
mercenary.
o Doña Victorina delos Reyes de Espadaña, a paragon of colonial mentality.
o Doña Consolacion, a vulgar, imprudent, quarrelsome, adnd cruel mistress of
an alferez.
o Paulita Gomez, the niece of Doña Victorina, who represents the aristocrats
during the Spanish times in the Philippines who yielded to the practice of
ethnicopolitical selection in marriage.

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 EL FILIBUSTERISMO, RIZAL’S SECOND NOVEL

Rizal considered his second novel, El Filibusterismo, more profound and

perfect than Noli Me Tangere.
All the abuses of the friars, especially against his family and the people
of Calamba, were valiantly and truthfully depicted in El Filibusterismo. These in
fact could have well been Rizal’s motivation for writing El Filibusterismo. The
novel was dedicated to the memory of GOMBURZA, who had been unjustly
executed on February 17, 1872. Rizal’s dedication partly reads as follows:

The Church, by refusing to unfrock you, has put in doubt the crime charged
against you; the Government by enshrouding your trial in mystery and
pardoning your co-accused has implied that some mistake was committed
when your fate was decided; and the whole of the Philippines in paying
homage to your memory and calling you martyrs totally rejects your guilt.

As long therefore as it is not clearly shown that you took part in the uprising in Cavite, I
have the right, whether or not you were patriots and whether or not you were seeking
justice and liberty, to dedicate my work to you as victims of the evil I am trying to fight.
AndYour
while
Date we
Herewait for Spain to clear your names some day, refusing to be party to your
death, let these pages serve as a belated wreath of withered leaves on your forgotten
graves. Whoever attacks your memory without sufficient proof has your blood upon his
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hands.
 EL FILIBUSTERISMO, COMES OFF THE PRESS

Rizal finished writing the El Filibusterismo in 1891. He found a

publisher in Ghent who offered to publish the novel and to accept payment
for such an installment basis. It was thus printed at F. Meyer Van Loo at
No. 66 Vlanderstraat, near the house of Jose Alejandro. To be able to meet
the publication expenses, Rizal boarded a small room and ate in the
cheapest restaurants. He often ate only bread and coffee, and only once a
day.
When all hope seemed to have been lost, an unexpected friend,
Valentin Ventura, from Paris, sent Rizal 200 francs to cover the novel’s
publication expenses. Finally, thanks to the financial assistance extended
by his friend, Rizal’s second novel was released on September 18, 1891.
Rizal sent two copies of it to Hong Kong, one for Jose Ma. Basa and the
other for Sixto Lopez. Valentin Ventura, Rizal’s friend in Paris who had
helped him with the book’s printing, was given the original printed copy.
Rizal also sent complimentary copies to Blumentritt, Mariano Ponce,
Graciano Lopez-Jaena, T.H. Pardo de Tavera, Antonio and Juan Luna,
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and his other friends.

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 THE CHARACTERS OF EL FILIBUSTERISMO

o Simon, Crisostomo Ibarra reborn, who returns to the Philippines after

13 years of absence to destroy the Philippine society, having become a
victim of the vicious system therein.
o Maria Clara, Ibarra-Simoun’s love-interest who suffers from physical
and spiritual abuse for 13 years, which eventually leads to her death.
o Elias, a humbke, courageous, thoughtful, and farsighted native Filipino
coming from a persecuted family who symbolizes the common people.
o Señor Pasta, an affluent lawyer who was once a servant of the friars and
who now acts as a consultant for them; concerned only with his own
interest, he refuses to help the students petitioning for the opening of an
academy for the teaching of Castilian.
o Isagani, a young studentwho has high ideals and big dreams for his
country, full of enthusiasm and inspired by the spirit of reform; he
symbolizes the educated Filipino youths during the Spanish times whose
idealism was untested and unreliable.
o Placido Penitente, who leaves the university in spite of the pleadings
and sacrifices of his mother, who wants him to become a lawyer,
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disillusioned by the state of affairs he finds himself in as a student, he
later develops the desire to go abroad.
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 THE CHARACTERS OF EL FILIBUSTERISMO

o Paulita Gomez, the niece of Doña Victorina, who represents the

aristocrats during the Spanish times in the Philippines who yielded to
the practice of ethnicopolitical selection in marriage; she disdains the
morality and talent of Isagani, her sweetheart, and instead chooses
Juanito Pelaez, an ignorant and foolish mestizo.
o Basilio, a medical student whose family undergoes much suffering; an
educated Filipino who experiences cruelties in the hands of Spanish
friars and who ends up becoming insensitive to the needs of the society.
o Don Custodio de Salazar y sanchez de Monteredondo, a Spanish
official occupying many positions in the government but who has neither
the time nor the qualifications fro some of such positions; he finds
pleasure in developing a feeling of inferiority in the Filipinos.
o Cabesang Tales, a victim of land grabbing by the friars who becomes
desperate and joins the outlaws to avenge the wrong done to him.
o Capitan Pablo, whose daughter was raped and whose son was tortured,
the head of a band of outlaws determined to annihilate the society.
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o school
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better ways of making her pupils learn than imposing corporal
punishment on them if they fail to do so.
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