Noli Me Tángere (novel)
Events/Artifacts (north to south) Events/Artifacts Artifacts Noli Me Tángere (Latin for "Touch Me Not") is a novel by Filipino writer and activist José Rizal and was published during the Spanish colonial period of the Philippines.It explores inequities in law and practice in terms of the treatment by the ruling government and the Spanish Catholic friars of the resident peoples in the late 19th century.Originally written by Rizal in Spanish, the book has since been more commonly published and read in the Philippines in either Tagalog (the major indigenous language), or English.The Rizal Law requires Noli, published in 1887, and its 1891 sequel, El filibusterismo, to be read by all high school students throughout the country.[2] He is explicit about the connection in the novel's dedication, which begins: A mi patria ('To my country')[3]: 26 and continues with "...a cancer of so malignant a character that the least touch irritates it and awakens in it the sharpest pains.José Rizal, a Filipino nationalist and polymath, conceived the idea of writing a novel that would expose the backwardness and lack of progress of Philippine society because of the burden of colonization.According to historian Carlos Quirino, the novel bears similarities in terms of characterization and plot to the Spanish novelist Benito Pérez Galdós' "Doña Perfecta".[5] Rizal intended to express the way Filipino culture was perceived to be backward, anti-progress, anti-intellectual, and not conducive to the ideals of the Age of Enlightenment.At a gathering on January 2, 1884, of friends at the house of Pedro A. Paterno, Rizal proposed that a group of Filipinos should collaborate on a novel about the Philippines.His proposal was unanimously approved by those present, among whom were Pedro, Máximo Viola and Antonio Paterno, Graciano López Jaena, Evaristo Aguirre, Eduardo de Lete, Julio Llorente, and Valentin Ventura.Initially, Rizal planned for the novel to encompass all phases of Filipino life, but most of his friends, all young males, wanted to write about women.Later, as Crisóstomo was walking back to his hotel, Lieutenant Guevara, another friend of his father, informs him that Don Rafael may have been killed for political reasons and Dámaso may have been involved.As the two flirt and reminisce, María reads back to him a part of his farewell letter on his discussion with his father about the state of the country.He seeks out the gravedigger who then tells him that the parish priest had ordered Don Rafael's remains transferred to the Chinese cemetery, but that he threw the corpse into the lake instead out of fear and pity.Realizing the scheme's repercussions, Crisóstomo abandons his school project and enlists Elías in sorting out and destroying documents that may implicate him.Kapitán Tiago later on hosts a dinner at his riverside house in Manila to celebrate María Clara's engagement with Alfonso Linares, a Peninsular who was presented as her new suitor following Crisóstomo's excommunication.Knowing why Salví had earlier requested to be assigned to the Convent of the Poor Clares, Dámaso pleads with María to reconsider, but to no avail.One of the nuns had a wet and torn gown and with tears told the representative of "tales of horror" and begged for "protection against the outrages of hypocrisy" (strongly suggesting that Padre Salví regularly rapes her when he is in the convent).Copies of the book were nevertheless smuggled in and hidden, and when Rizal returned to the Philippines after completing medical studies, he quickly ran afoul of the local government.A few days after his arrival, Rizal was summoned to Malacañan Palace by Governor-General Emilio Terrero, who told him of the charge that Noli Me Tángere contained subversive elements.It is whispered that I want to draw plans, that I have a foreign passport and that I wander through the streets by night...Rizal was exiled to Dapitan in Mindanao, then later arrested for "inciting rebellion" based largely on his writings.Rizal was executed by firing squad at Bagumbayan outside Manila's walls on December 30, 1896, at the age of thirty-five, at the park that now bears his name.The work was instrumental in creating a unified Filipino national identity and consciousness, as many natives previously identified with their respective regions.In 1956, Congress passed Republic Act 1425, more popularly known as the Rizal Law, which requires all levels in Philippine schools to teach the novel as part of their curriculum.In the later parts of the novel, she was revealed to be an illegitimate daughter of Father Dámaso, the former curate of the town, and Doña Pía Alba, Kapitán Tiago's wife, who had died giving birth to María Clara.[14] Later, he and María Clara had bitter arguments on whether she would marry Alfonso Linares de Espadaña (which he preferred) or enter the nunnery (her desperate alternative).Impong's younger son, knowing their deaths would somehow be imputed upon him, fled to the province of Tayabas where he met and fell in love with a rich young heiress.The verbal scuffle mounted to the point where records were dug up, and Elías and his sister, as well as a good part of town, learned the truth.To my fatherland [alternatively, "To my country"]: Recorded in the history of human sufferings is a cancer of so malignant a character that the least touch irritates it and awakens in it the sharpest pains.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.
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