CHARACTER ANALYSIS: 1st novel

[Virtual Presenter] Although the novel is a work of fiction, the novel can be considered a true story of the Philippines during the last decades of Spanish rule. The characters used by Rizal in the Noli were persons who actually existed during those times..

[Audio] Juan Crisostomo Ibarra as the main character in the novel. He was the son of Don Rafael, one of the wealthiest businessman in San Diego. He was an affluent and liberal European-educated Filipino. He is a loyal son, courageous, civic-minded, liberty-loving and patriotic. As an ideal of humanity he desires the education of the approval of the majority of the people of San Diego. His worthwhile project is opposed by Father Damaso. A very patient man but when provoked becomes very violent and impulsive. He was also the childhood friend which became a sweetheart of Maria Clara..

[Audio] Maria Clara has an eyes like her mother, Pia – large and had long eyelashes- which are beautiful and expressive. She is beautiful, charming, pious, obedient, faithful lover and self-sacrificing. She wore dainty dresses, religious artefacts and a locket. She also carries a silk pouch. She sometimes uses a fan to hide her face. On account of her feminine beauty, a conflict is presented by Rizal between her and Father Salvi, another misguided priest, who is in love with her..

[Audio] Elias is a former boatman who became one of the most wanted criminals in SanDiego. He comes from a family of the persecuted. He used to have a twin sister. He was educated in a Jesuit college. They used to be wealthy. He is humble, courageous, thoughtful, and farsighted. He is bent on vindicating the common people who are victims of injustices and thus becomes a vehement enemy of the authorities. He prefers revolution over reforms proposed by Ibarra. He is opposed by the civil guards who are men who know only how to repress crimes by using terrorism..

[Audio] Crisostomo's father, a just and good man wrought his undoing when he came to the aid of a young boy harmed by an ignorant tax-collector. His hidden enemies invented false charges against him when he was jailed. His independent views find opposition in Father Damaso who calls him heretic and filibuster..

[Audio] Tasio came from a wealthy family. He is pessimist and untrusting of human altruism. A former student taking philosophy, his mother fearing that he may forget God because he is becoming learned, gives him the choice of studying in the seminary for the priesthood or leaving college. He chooses the latter. Although he is independent-minded on religious views, he is tolerant. He entertains beautiful ideas which his generation cannot understand. And so he writes them in hieroglyphics for the future generation..

[Audio] A religious fanatic, he is at peace with God, the Government, and the people. He is ready to please the authorities because he finds them useful in carrying out some of his activities, such as making contract in feeding the prisoners, supplying zacate to several government establishments and securing appointment in tax collection. He maintains a good standing with the authorities for he finds business with them, especially in securing the sales of appointments and offices..

[Audio] Later he and Maria Clara had a bitter argument. He arranged Maria Clara to be wed with Linares. He was assigned to another town and is found dead one day..

[Audio] This couple is childless. Victorina has a lot of Filipino suitors but she doesnot like them because they are not Spaniards. She was an ambitious Filipina who classifies herself as a Spanish and mimics Spanish ladies by putting heavy make-up. Meanwhile, Don Tiburcio was an official of the customs bureau. He was known for charging exorbitant fees for medical treatment..

[Audio] She is the mistress of the Alferez. She is vulgar, imprudent, quarrelsome and cruel. Being the only competitor of Capitan Tiago in godliness, she did everything to pretend that she was really religious by showing off to the public what she could contribute for the Church..

[Audio] Sisa was the mother of Basilio and Crispin. She is a typical native wife who tolerates the abuses of her husband. As the mother of Crispin and Basilio, she is described as a mother who considers her sons as her only treasure. She would often anticipate their return as she prepared dishes for them. In the novel she lost her mental balance upon learning what happened to Basilio and Crispin..

[Audio] Basilio and Crispin are the sons of Sisa who served as alatr boys or Sacristan to help ease their mother's financial burden. Basilio is the oldest between the two siblings. Meanwhile, Crispin was the youngest son of Sisa. The two boys were mistreated by the head of the Sacristan. Crispin was accused of stealing and was last seen being dragged away from his brother. Basilio faced the dread of losing his younger brother and his mother's insanity..

[Audio] The succeeding slides will show the real life inspiration of the different characters in the novel. First, Juan Crisostomo Ibarra exemplified a man with a liberal mind. His character personified the vision of Jose Rizal for the youth of the Philippines during his time. Others attribute Rizal as being Ibarra himself..

[Audio] Maria Clara symbolizes a woman who does not value material things but holds in high esteem her parent's honor and the promise she had given her sweetheart. She symbolizes purity and innocence. Her character represents a type of Filipino womanhood brought up in the convent and educated along religious lines. Her real character is related to Leonor Rivera, Rizal's childhood sweetheart..

[Audio] Rizal represented the Filipino masses in the novel through Elias. As the symbol of the common people, Elias did everything to vindicate them from the injustices suffered from the Spaniards. He is said to be the personification of Andres Bonifacio..

[Audio] Rizal used Don Rafael in the Noli to symbolize an affluent landlord with a social conscience because he is a philanthropist..

[Audio] He represented Rizal's epitome of a philosopher. He personifies the philosopher who is called the sage by the cultured and the lunatic by others who do not know him on account of his peculiar ideas. In addition, Tasio is one of the characters that Rizal can relate to as it is patterned after his brother, Paciano Rizal.

[Audio] Rizal employed Capitan Tiago in the novel to represent a Filipino who is subservient to the authorities to protect his personal and business interest..

[Audio] Padre Damaso represents the social class which does not like liberalism. He symbolizes the abusive Spanish friars during his time..

[Audio] Dona Victorina is the paragon of colonial mentality. She disdains what is Filipino and imitates what is Spanish. Rizal used her in the novel to symbolize colonial mentality among some Filipinos during his time. Meanwhile, Don Tiburcio is the caricature of ignorant Spaniards who wreak havoc in the provinces during the colonial era. His countrymen condone his actions for they do not want him to become a burden to them..

[Audio] Rizal used the character of Dona Consolacion in the novel to represent the mentality of the guardia civil..

[Audio] Sisa is thought to represent the motherland who was suffering as her character have suffed the loss of her children. The tragic events that ruined her life represented the abuse that the motherland received from her colonizers. Her character illustrates the lack of concern by society in trying to help solve her problems-the maltreatment of her two sons and the indignities she suffers which finally drive her to mental derangement..

[Audio] The stories of Sisa, Basilio and Crispin represent a Filipino family persecuted by the Spanish authorities. Victims of poverty and ignorance. Specifically, Basilio represents a loving son and a brother. Also, he represent those who became orphans. Meanwhile Crispin represents the innocents who have been wrongly accused and was silenced by their death.

[Audio] Here is the synopsis of the novel Noli Me Tangere. Crisostomo Ibarra, the son of a wealthy landlord, Rafael Ibarra, is bethroted from early youth to Maria Clara, the only daughter of Santiago (Capitan Tiago) de los Santos, a wealthy landlord, too. Crisostomo is sent abroad to study. During his absence his father, who has a Spanish blood himself, runs afoul with the authorities by accidentally killing an ignorant Spanish tax-collector who threatened him because he came to help a little boy who was harmed by the tax-collector, an ex-artilleryman. Rafael Ibarra dies in jail and, as a free thinker who had stopped going to confession, is denied Christian burial by Father Damaso Verdolagas, the parish priest of their lakeside home-town of San Diego..

[Audio] When Ibarra returns from Europe after seven years, Capitan Tiago gave an aristocratic dinner in his honor at his pretentious house at Calle Anloague in Binondo, Manila. One Lieutenant Guevara, a trusted friend of Crisostomo's father, later informs Crisostomo of the death of Don Rafael. When Ibarra learns of his father's fate, he is at first overcome with rage. Dedicated to the uplift of his people through education, he puts aside his plans for revenge in order to secure official approval for the building of a town school, his gift to Maria Clara. At the laying of the school's cornerstone Ibarra is almost killed in an obviously contrived accident and is saved only by the warning of Elias, a mysterious pilot whom Ibarra had rescued from death from a crocodile during an outing on the lake..

[Audio] Father Damaso is vehemently and openly opposed to the marriage of Ibarra to Maria Clara. At a public dinner after the school founding ceremony he insults the memory of Ibarra's father. Ibarra loses control of himself and is about to kill Father Damaso when Maria Clara stops his avenging hand. Ibarra, automatically excommunicated for laying violent hands on a priest, is forbidden to see Maria Clara again. Father Damaso arranges for her marriage instead to a Spanish relative of his, Alfonso Linares..

[Audio] Worse is still to happen. Father Salvi's head sacristan recruits the desperate and oppressed in San Diego for an uprising in the name of and allegedly with the money of Ibarra. The uprising is denounced by the parish priest to the Alferez and is suppressed. The young liberals of the town, with Ibarra at their head, are seized and charged with rebellion. There is no proof against Ibarra until Maria Clara is persuaded to surrender to Father Bernardo Salvi and the authorities some letters of dubious loyalty which Ibarra had written to her from abroad. Ibarra is found guilty but he is liberated from jail by Elias. He confronts Maria Clara with her treachery and she confesses that she was forced to exchange his letters for some of Father Damaso, which Father Salvi had found in the parish house. The letters would have proved that her real father was the friar..

[Audio] Ibarra, having forgiven Maria Clara because they really love each other, flees with Elias up the river to the lake but they are sighted by a constabulary patrol; one of them is killed; who survives, remains a mystery. A dying man buries Ibarra's treasure at the foot of his grandfather's grave. Maria Clara, believing Ibarra dead, refuses to go ahead with her marriage to Linares; she had planned to run away afterwards to join her lover. Father Damaso pleads with her, but then and there realizes how much she loved Ibarra. He had only opposed their marriage and persecuted Ibarra's family because, as his real father, he could not bear the thought of her becoming the wife of a native, without privileges, without rights. Then she threatens to kill herself, he consents at lasts to her entering a nunnery of Poor Clares; here the chaplain is Father Salvi, who is waiting for the promotion which is due him for suppressing the uprising in San Diego. The story ends with a glimpse of a beautiful young nun standing on the ridge of the roof of the convent "with arms and face raised toward the sky as if praying to it.".

[Audio] To fully transition to the next novel which is the El Filibusterismo, you are required to read Chapter 64 of Noli Me Tangere and write in your notebook a brief summary of the fate of each major character in the novel. There are available copies online. Pay close attention to how their individual stories conclude and the events that shape their destinies. In your summary, include key characters such as Crisóstomo Ibarra, María Clara, Padre Dámaso, Sisa, Elias, Doña Victorina, Doña Consolacion, and Basilio figures mentioned in the final chapter. Be sure to describe their outcomes concisely, focusing on how José Rizal resolved their narratives..

[Audio] For this assignment, you will work in groups of five members to analyze whether Filipino society has truly evolved since José Rizal's time or if certain aspects remain unchanged. Your group will select one of the following topics: education, governance, or the role of women. Using Noli Me Tangere as a reference, compare how your chosen topic was portrayed in the novel with its current state in the Philippines today. To present your response, your group will create a collage that visually represents your analysis, combining images, text, and symbols to highlight historical and contemporary parallels. Be specific in selecting materials. Your group may use printed newspapers featuring current events, magazine clippings, drawings, or other relevant visual elements to support your analysis. Ensure that your collage is neatly arranged, encoded on a short bond paper, and creatively presented. Additionally, include a short explanation with your collage that describes how the selected images and text support your group's perspective on whether Filipino society has evolved or if certain issues remain unchanged. Submit your group's work by May 9, 2025..