Across the Country Reading El Filibusterismo and Noli Me Tangere Into The High School Curriculum

Jose’ Protasio Rizal Mercado yAlonso Realonda » a patriot, a physician, a man of letters and wisdom who was an inspiration to the Philippine Nationalist Movement. In 1886, Rizal published his first novel, Noli Me Tangere (The Social Cancer), a passionate exposure of the evils of Spanish rule in the Philippines. Asequel, El Filibusterismo (1981) — written in Spanish — also known as The Reign of Greed, established his reputation as the leading spokesman of the Philippine reform movement. This novel accounts for the Filipinos’ resistance to colonial rule that resonates even today. El Filibusterismo is a dark literature, brooding, and a satirical novel of retaliation, unfulfilled love, and tragic story. Rizal’s two novels was banned in some parts of the Philippines before as Spaniards deemed it made assumptions of corruption and abuse.

This literatures led to Rizal‘s imprisonment and exile to Dapitan and eventually, his execution, El Filibusterismo aims at enlightening the society, bringing the Filipinos closer to the truth. But whereas in Noli, we were encouraged to ask and aspire for change and liberation in this novel, the society is urged to open its eyes to reality and rebel against the Spanish government for its oppression and abuse.In Noli Me Tangere, these is aspiration, beauty, romance and mercy. However in El Filibusterismo, all the reader will feel is bitterness, hatred, and antipathy. The romance and aspirations are gone. Even the characters‘ personalities seem to have undergone radical change. This is how different Rizal’s second novel is, Considering that both were written by the same person, the plots are polar opposites.

This literary art of Rizal defends Filipino from accusations of foolishness and lack knowledge, it shows how Filipinos lived during the times Philippines was in the hands of Spaniards. It depicted how important religion was and how it affected people in making decisions. Jose Rizal was able to expose the cruelties, immoralities, graft, and corruption of the false government led by the priests. This sequel, marked the return of a character from Noli Me Tangere ~ Crisostomo Ibarra — as a completely new different persona named Simoun who was wealthy jeweler. While lbarra in Noli was trusting, aspiring, and loving, Simoun is now cunningly careful in dealings, distrusting and extremely bitter.

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Outright scorn and bitterness may already be felt at the beginning of the story, where Simoun promotes abuse and tyranny in the Spanish government, in the hope that the people will reach the limits of their endurance and declare a revolution. Consumed by the fury caused the abuse he received from the Spaniards, ‘Simoun’ abandoned his pacifist belief in order to return to the Philippines and execute his vengeance which he has plotted for years. During the process of executing his plan, Simoun asked Basilio — another character from Noli Me Tangere 7 for help, who was a skilled student of the medicinal course. He was tasked to detonate a bomb with Simoun's signal, planted in a social gathering of the Chinese man in the novel.

Basilio warned his friend, Isagani, that the woman he loves is near the proximity of the bomb. With knowing this, lsagani made sure to throw the bomb in the river avening the explosion and dismpting the revolution. lmplicated by this matters, Simoun committed suicide by drinking a poison and found a resting place at the home of a priest he trusts, named Father Florentino who witnessed Simoun uttering his last confession with his dying breathl Father Florentine took it upon him to dispose of Simoun’s jewels into the sea, remarking that the jewels that once represented bribery and cormption would one day find its meaningful purpose. The novel has a profound symbolism of Rizal. The question of “evolution or revolution?" and the problem of whether to wait for justice by the hands of the Spaniards or to take the law in on’s own hands are interspersed in the entire novel.

In the novel, there were instances when the author himself reflected his insights and judgements as the main character's thoughts, during the times of hardships of the Philippines in the hands of the Spaniards. Events in the sequel novel is the literary interpretation of what happened to Rizal in real life. For instance, as lbarra asked on his death bed, “but how come He [God] had not punished those whose evil surpasses mine ?" - With this specific sentence, Crisostomo lbarra wondered as to why those people whose sins and crimes equal a barbarian’s were not served to death. Rizal felt he was being treated unfairly as it seemed that God himself, turned a blind eye on the Spaniards’ immoralities while lbarra‘s sins were pointed out down to smallest lie that was uttered by his lips. The priest said, “Do not blame Him, His [God’s] punishments are meted out all in their due time!" - The priest wanted lbarra to understand that we should not blame God for the things that He do to us.

If he gives us punishments and we feel like it is unfair we should put into our mind that he has plans and the mistakes that we and other people make has a corresponding punishment which will be given to us in a particular time different from the other people. Juan Crisostomo lbarra changed his overall personality to someone he never wanted to be, as he consciousness was consumed by the bubbling anger in his heart for the Spaniards. And revenge was the only things embedded in his mind - After all the things that lbarra went through, the text above is more than enough proof that lbarra was consumed by his anger and changed his whole persona and plotted for vengeance. Anger makes people not thing clearly and act impulsively. When lbarra came back as Simoun, it implied that something Changed in Rizal in the real life and this was reflected in the personalities he gave his El Filibusterismo characters. In El Filibusterismo, Simoun — Crisostomo lbarra‘s alter ego - planned to carry out his revenge on Spaniards but evidently failed as he did this by blowing up the house of the late.

Capitan Tiago with dynamite where many Spaniards holding important positions are present there. - Perhaps the author, Jose Rizal himself, wanted people to realize that there are many ways for a person to carry out his revenge. And we should also consider many things in order for our plan to be successful. In Ibarra's case, yes his intention is to take revenge and have the Spaniards pay for all the immoralities they have done to every Filipino, but it wasn’t the right way. He took matters into his own hands, and I think that lbarra‘s desire for vengeance would only be sated if he saw the blood of those barbaric priests in his own hands. He could do other methods where only the bad Spaniards will be affected and spare the good people, Maybe that is the reason why his plan does not succeed.

It was Rizal‘s desire to use his novel — El Filibusterismo — as a way to present the various sectors and aspects the society when Filipinos were twirled around the hands of Spaniards. This sequel appeared more like a chronicle or annals instead of just a creative work of literature. As a reader, it felt like reading isolated short stories about people from different paths of life instead ofjust one collective one coherent narrative. For instance, Basilio represented a diligent and intelligent student determined to get an education despite of the odds being against him. Kabesang Tales signified all of the oppressed farmers who strive to fight for agricultural justice but fails in the end as no one is brave enough to side with him and fight the Spaniards.

Furthermore, Quiroga is a representative of the group of the Chinese Merchants living in the Philippines who just wanted to prosper by selling merchandises, Ginoong Pasta symbolizes those lawyers who have lost hope, became cynical and were afraid to fight against the abusive government. Despite the few evident circumstances that seems to connect these characters, the reader doesn’t feel that they are related in a way and just belong in one lengthy story. Moreover, the titles of all the kubanala or chapters seems a little bit insipid as it doesn’t portray any sense of mystery They appear like titles of a simple essay, wherein they won’t even work as accurate titles of personality sketches. Pondering about this, it would seem that Rizal followed a pattern or the way early English novelists give title to their chapters, essays, novels or books. An example is Samuel Richardson’s Pamela and Henry Fielding’s Shamelai.

Other books of tales with this way of making chapter titles are Soltaire’s Candice and Samuel Johnson’s Resselasi The titles directly reflect the content of the chapter and doesn’t even leave anything to the imagination. El Filibusterismo is a political novel full of resentment, sorrow, pain, violence and vengeance to awaken the Filipino people against the abusive masters. It bore an irresistible urge to conduct a revolution among the Filipinos against the government and the practices of the church which appeared realistict Compared to Noli Me Tangere, for me. this one is more serious and harder to read as it is a good representation of how Philippines struggled in the past.

As I understood it, Rizal thought fighting for freedom during his time by writing two of his novels is not only for personal gain but also for the greater good of all the Filipinos. El Filibusterismo had an insightful effect on the society of the Philippines in the past in terms of how people viewed their national identity, the Catholic faith, and how it influences the choices they make, the government;s issues of corruption, These novels later on indirectly became the inspiration of Filipinos to start the Philippine Revolutiont.

The story is a tribute to our country. It clearly depicts the oppression that we suffer. For all intents and purposes, this is still one of the greatest works of literature that ever came out of our country. El Filibusterismo is a massive turning point not only for the plot but also for the characters Throughout the nation, the reading of both the El Filibusterismo and Noli Me Tangere is now incorporated in the high school curriculum and is mandatory to be read by high school students , either in English, Filipino or other regional languages e throughout the archipelago The Reign of Creed is written with more political force, less charm and almost without incident.

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