Rizal

Since I forgot on which Filipino authors I have to research, I will just blog about our National Hero, Jose P. Rizal. ( I hope you can forgive me Maam Eliz. :D)

Dr. Jose Protacio Rizal Mercado y Alonso Realonda, Jose Rizal for short is the Philippines unofficial National Hero. We all know his story, from his childhood up to his last days when he was shot by a firing squad in Bagumbayan. So I am going to talk about his two famous novels entitled Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo.

Rizal's Noli and El Fili are the main reasons why he was accused of being the one who started the Katipunan which led to his demise. Having lived in the time in which the Philippines is colonized by the Spaniards, Noli and El Fili contained depictions on what is really happening in the Philippines that time in which the Spaniards find really offensive since they are depicted as the bad guys. Rizal had some doubts in writing these two novels and struggled to publish these two novels mainly because of lack of money. These happenings are well documented and represented in the 1998 movie entitled Rizal.

The plot of Noli is mainly about the love story of Juan Chrisostomo Ibarra and Maria Clara and the second part, El Fili is about the revenge of Ibarra to all of those who plotted against him during the events of Noli. What is beautiful about these two novels in not only because it represented what is happening in the Philippines during that time, but also because of the message it contained. These two novels portrayed that even when push to the limit, violence is not the answer. That the Philippines during that time is not ready and should not aim for a violent revolution since it will not solve anything. The pen is always mightier than the sword they say and that is what Rizal want to portray and he did achieve it when he wrote this two novels.

Rizal lived a life similarly on how Chrisostomo Ibarra lived his. They did not see the fruits of all there efforts come into blossom but they became the main foundation for a better tomorrow. It is like he wrote his autobiography when Noli came out.