Noli Me Tangere
By Jose
Rizal
Having completed his studies in Europe, young Juan Crisóstomo
Ibarra y Magsalin came back to the Philippines after a 7-year absence. In his
honor, Don Santiago de los Santos "Captain Tiago" a family friend,
threw a welcome home party, attended by friars and other prominent figures. One
of the guests, former San Diego curate Fray Dámaso Vardolagas, belittled and
slandered Ibarra.
The next day, Ibarra visits María Clara, his betrothed, the
beautiful daughter of Captain Tiago and affluent resident of Binondo.
Their long-standing love was clearly manifested in this meeting, and María
Clara cannot help but reread the letters her sweetheart had written her before
he went to Europe. Before Ibarra left for San Diego, Lieutenant Guevara,
a Civil Guard, reveals to him the incidents
preceding the death of his father, Don Rafael Ibarra, a rich hacendero of
the town.
According to Guevara, Don Rafael was unjustly accused of
being a heretic, in addition to being a subversive — an allegation brought
forth by Dámaso because of Don Rafael's non-participation in the Sacraments,
such as Confession and Mass.
Fr. Dámaso's animosity towards Ibarra's father is aggravated by another
incident when Don Rafael helped out in a fight between a tax collector and a
child, with the former's death being blamed on him, although it was not
deliberate. Suddenly, all those who thought ill of him surfaced with additional
complaints. He was imprisoned, and just when the matter was almost settled, he
died of sickness in jail.
Revenge was not in Ibarra's plans, instead he carried
through his father's plan of putting up a school, since he believed education
would pave the way to his country's progress (all throughout the novel, the
author refers to both Spain and the Philippines as two different countries but
part of the same nation or family, with Spain seen as the mother and the
Philippines as the daughter). During the inauguration of the school, Ibarra
would have been killed in a sabotage had Elías — a mysterious man who had
warned Ibarra earlier of a plot to assassinate him — not saved him. Instead the
hired killer met an unfortunate incident and died.
After the inauguration, Ibarra hosted a luncheon during
which Fr. Dámaso, gate-crashing the luncheon, again insulted him. Ibarra
ignored the priest's insolence, but when the latter slandered the memory of his
dead father, he was no longer able to restrain himself and he lunged at Dámaso,
prepared to stab him for his impudence. Consequently, Dámaso excommunicated Ibarra,
taking this opportunity to persuade the already-hesitant Tiago to forbid his
daughter from marrying Ibarra. The friar wanted María Clara to marry Linares,
a Peninsular who just arrived from Spain.
With the help of the Governor-General, Ibarra's excommunication
was nullified and the Archbishop decided to accept him as a member of the Church once again.
Soon, a revolt happened and the Spanish officials and friars
implicated Ibarra as its mastermind. Thus, he was arrested and detained. As a
result, he was disdained by those who became his friends.
Meanwhile, in Capitán Tiago's residence, a party was being
held to announce the upcoming wedding of María Clara and Linares. Ibarra, with
the help of Elías, took this opportunity to escape from prison. Before leaving,
Ibarra spoke to María Clara and accused her of betraying him, thinking she gave
the letter he wrote her to the jury. María Clara explained that she would never
conspire against him, but that she was forced to surrender Ibarra's letter to
Father Salvi, in exchange for the letters written by her mother even before
she, María Clara, was born.
María Clara, thinking Ibarra had been killed in the shooting
incident, was greatly overcome with grief. Robbed of hope and severely
disillusioned, she asked Dámaso to confine her to a nunnery. Dámaso reluctantly
agreed when she threatened to take her own life, demanding, "the nunnery
or death!" Unbeknownst
to her, Ibarra was still alive and able to escape. It was Elías who had taken
the shots.
It was Christmas Eve when Elías woke up in the forest
fatally wounded. It is here where he instructed Ibarra to meet him. Instead,
Elías found the altar boy Basilio cradling his already-dead mother, Sisa. The
latter lost her mind when she learned that her two sons, Crispín and Basilio,
were chased out of the convent by the sacristan mayor on suspicions of stealing
sacred objects.
Elías, convinced he would die soon, instructs Basilio to
build a funeral pyre and burn his and Sisa's bodies to ashes. He tells Basilio
that, if nobody reaches the place, he was to return later and dig as he would find
gold. Elías further tells Basilio to take the gold he finds and go to school.
In his dying breath, he instructed Basilio to continue dreaming about freedom
for his motherland with the words:
Elías died thereafter.
I shall die without seeing the dawn break upon my
homeland. You, who shall see it, salute it! Do not forget those who have
fallen during the night.
|
Elías died thereafter.
In the epilogue, it was explained that Tiago became addicted
to opium and was seen to frequent the opium house in Binondo to satiate his
addiction. María Clara became a nun when Salví, who had lusted after her from
the beginning of the novel, regularly used her to fulfill his lust. One stormy
evening, a beautiful insane woman was seen at the top of the convent crying and
cursing the heavens for the fate it had handed her. While the woman was never
identified, it is insinuated that the said woman was María Clara.
Crisostomo Ibarra
Maria Clara
Padre Damaso
Capitan Tiago
Pilosofo Tasyo
Elias
Sisa
Dona
Victorina
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