(Touch me Not / Don't touch me)

JOSE P. RIZAL

The title, in Latin meaning Touch me not, refers to John 20:17 in the Bible(King James Version) as Mary Magdalene tried to touch the newly risen Jesus, He said "Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father."

The TITLE

JOSE RIZAL preferred that the prospective novel expresses the backward, anti-progress and anti-intellectual way Filipino culture was.

References for the novel

On JUNE 2, 1884, Rizal proposed the writing of a novel about the Philippines written by a group of Filipinos.

References for the novel

His proposal was unanimously approved by the Filipinos present at the party, among whom were Pedro, Maximino and Antonio Paterno,Graciano López Jaena, Evaristo Aguirre, Eduardo de Lete, Julio Llorente  and Valentin Ventura.

References for the novel

Rizal finished the novel in December 1886.

Rizal feared the novel might not be printed, and that it would remain unread.

A financial aid came from a friend named Máximo Viola which helped him print his book at a fine print media in Berlin named Berliner Buchdruckerei-Aktiengesellschaft.

PUBLICATION

Crisostomo IbarraSon of a Filipino businessman, Don Rafael Ibarra, he studied in Europe for seven years. Ibarra is also María Clara's fiancé. Several sources claim that Ibarra is also Rizal's reflection.

Major CHARACTERS

Ibarra's fiancée. She

was raised by Capitán Tiago and is the most beautiful and widely celebrated girl in San Diego.

an illegitimate daughter of Father Dámaso.

María Clara

Santiago de los Santos, known

by his nickname Tiago and political title Capitán Tiago is a Filipino businessman and the cabeza de barangay or head of barangay of the town of San Diego. He is also the known father of María Clara.

Capitan Tiago

Dámaso Verdolagas, or Padre Dámaso is a Franciscan friar and the former parish curate of San Diego. He is best known as a notorious character who speaks with harsh words and has been a cruel priest during his stay in the town.

Padre Dámaso

Elías is Ibarra's

mysterious friend and ally. He wants to revolutionize the country and to be freed from Spanish oppression.

Elias

DON ANASTASIO: Seeking for reforms from the government, he expresses his ideals in paper written in a cryptographic alphabet "that the future generations may be able to decipher it" and realized the abuse and oppression done by the conquerors.

Pilosopong Tacio

Doña Victorina de los

Reyes de Espadaña, is an ambitious Filipina who classifies herself as a Spanish and mimics Spanish ladies by putting on heavy make-up.

Doña Victorina

Narcisa or Sisa is the

deranged mother of Basilio and Crispín. Described as beautiful and young, although she loves her children very much, she can not protect them from the beatings of her husband, Pedro.

Sisa, Crispín, and Basilio

Crispín is Sisa's 7-year-old son. An altar boy, he was unjustly accused of stealing money from the church. After failing to force Crispín to return the money he allegedly stole, Father Salví and the head sacristan killed him. It is not directly stated that he was killed, but the dream of Basilio suggests that Crispín died during his encounter with Padre Salvi and his minion.

Basilio is Sisa's 10-year-old son. An acolyte tasked to ring the church bells for the Angelus, he faced the dread of losing his younger brother and the descent of his mother into insanity. At the end of the novel, Elías wished Basilio to bury him by burning in exchange of chest of gold located on his death ground. He will later play a major role in El Filibusterismo.

 Having completed his studies in Europe, Juan Crisóstomo Ibarra y Magsalin comes back to the Philippines after a 7-year absence.

PLOT

In his honor, Don Santiago delos Santos "Captain Tiago" a family friend, threw a get-together party, which was attended by friars and other prominent figures.

PLOT

One of the guests, former San Diego curate Fray Dámaso Vardolagas belittled and slandered Ibarra.

PLOT

The next day, Ibarra visits María Clara, his love, the beautiful daughter of Captain Tiago and affluent resident of Binondo.

PLOT

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.

PLOT

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.

PLOT

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.

PLOT

Dámaso's animosity against Ibarra's father is aggravated by another incident when Don Rafael helped out on a fight between a tax collector and a child fighting, and the former's death was blamed on him, although it was not on purpose.

PLOT

Suddenly, all of 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.

PLOT

Revenge was not in Ibarra's plans, instead he carried through his father's plan of putting up a school, since he believed that education would pave the way to his country's progress (all over the novel the author refers to both Spain and the Philippines as two different countries as part of a 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 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 lunged at Dámaso, prepared to stab him for his impudence

As a consequence, Dámaso excommunicated Ibarra, taking this opportunity to persuade the already-hesitant Tiago to forbid his daughter from marrying Ibarra. The friar wished María Clara to marry Linares, a Peninsular who had 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.

Meanwhile, in Capitan 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 that 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 that 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 into 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, as 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 that 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 come back later on and dig for he will find gold.

He also tells him (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:

“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.

Tiago became addicted to opium and was seen to frequent the opium house in Binondo to satiate his addiction.

EPILOGUE

María Clara became a nun where Salví, who has lusted after her

from the beginning of the novel, regularly used her to fulfill his

lust.

EPILOGUE

One stormy evening, a beautiful crazy woman was seen at the top of the convent crying and cursing the heavens for the fate it has handed

her.

EPILOGUE

While the woman

was never identified, it is

insinuated that the said woman was

Maria Clara.

EPILOGUE

Thirteen years after leaving the Philippines, Crisostomo Ibarra returns as Simoun, a rich jeweler sporting a beard and blue-tinted glasses, and a confidant of the Captain-General. Abandoning his idealism, he becomes a cynical saboteur, seeking revenge against the Spanish Philippine system responsible for his misfortunes by plotting a revolution. 

EL FILIBUSTERISMO

Simoun insinuates himself into Manila high society and influences every decision of the Captain-General to mismanage the country’s affairs so that a revolution will break out. 

He cynically sides with the upper classes, encouraging them to commit abuses against the masses to encourage the latter to revolt against the oppressive Spanish colonial regime.

This time, he does not attempt to fight the authorities through legal means, but through violent revolution using the masses. Simoun has reasons for instigating a revolution. First is to rescue María Clara from the convent and second, to get rid of ills and evils of Philippine society.

His true identity is discovered by a now grown-up Basilio while visiting the grave of his mother, Sisa, as Simoun was digging near the grave site for his buried treasures. 

Simoun spares Basilio’s life and asks him to join in his planned revolution against the government, egging him on by bringing up the tragic misfortunes of the latter's family. Basilio declines the offer as he still hopes that the country’s condition will improve.

Basilio, at this point, is a graduating student of medicine at the Ateneo Municipal de Manila. After the death of his mother, Sisa, and the disappearance of his younger brother, Crispín, Basilio heeded the advice of the dying boatman, Elías, and traveled to Manila to study. 

Basilio was adopted by Captain Tiago after María Clara entered the convent. With Captain Tiago’s help, Basilio was able to go to Colegio de San Juan de Letrán where, at first, he is frowned upon by his peers and teachers not only because of the color of his skin but also because of his shabby appearance.

Captain Tiago’s confessor, Father Irene is making Captain Tiago’s health worse by giving him opium even as Basilio tries hard to prevent Captain Tiago from smoking it. He and other students want to establish a Spanish language academy so that they can learn to speak and write Spanish despite the opposition from the Dominican friars of theUniversidad de Santo Tomás. 

With the help of a reluctant Father Irene as their mediator and Don Custodio’s decision, the academy is established; however they will only serve as caretakers of the school not as the teachers. Dejected and defeated, they hold a mock celebration at a pancitería while a spy for the friars witnesses the proceedings

Simoun, for his part, keeps in close contact with the bandit group of Kabesang Tales, a former cabeza de barangay who suffered misfortunes at the hands of the friars. Once a farmer owning a prosperous sugarcane plantation and a cabeza de barangay (barangay head), he was forced to give everything to the greedy and unscrupulous Spanish friars. 

From the characters;