At the Final Pages of Noli
Derain on Metafiction, María Clara, and Noli’s Epilogue
Inquisitive minds gathered at Kamarin Art Gallery, Naga City’s creative heart, on the evening of November 28th to listen to Dr. Allan N. Derain, a fictionist and professor at Ateneo de Manila University, deliver his lecture. Entitled “Maria Clara, Ibarra at Ako: Ang Mambabasa sa Wakas ng Nobela”, the talk is part of the Francisco F. Reyes Memorial Lecture Series on the Art of Fiction.
Against the backdrop of Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo facsimiles, Derain began his talk with, “Interesado akong pag-aralan muli ang Noli Me Tangere ni Rizal bilang nobela.” He posited that students of Rizal’s works tend to forget that Noli is a novel, and its status as a novel is of great importance. Throughout the next hour, he’d reaffirm this importance.
“Hinahatak niya tayo pabalik doon sa posisyon natin bilang nagbabasa ng nobela, kasi madalas nating nakakalimutan iyon,” says Derain. “Oy, teka muna, nobela itong binabasa mo.”
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Given that Noli Me Tangere was written and published in a Philippines that was not familiar with novels as a literary genre, its revolutionary status becomes clearer. Derain pointed out that Noli has not one, but two endings — its 63rd chapter and its epilogue. Reading the epilogue, it becomes apparent that Noli is a work of metafiction, with Rizal explaining that a true epilogue would be “impossible” as many of the novel’s characters are still breathing — though many of them have washed ashore at Isla de Convalecencia, as severed limbs and heads.
The whereabouts of the remaining characters, however, are symbolic of Rizal’s views on colonial Filipino society. Through Kapitan Tiago’s fate, succumbing to opiates and becoming a nobody, and Doña Consolación to alcoholism, Rizal condemns resignation to isolation; and the unceasing reign of terror of Padre Salví as a reflection of friars’ abuse of power during those times.
Derain then took the attendees to María Clara’s locus at the epilogue: a convent where no man is allowed to enter. Here, Derain spotlights a new perspective on the character of María Clara — not as the icon she is known today, the embodiment of the ideal Filipino woman, but as a relic of a misogynistic past. In Gothic fashion, a wailing María Clara in agony is seen by two civil guards atop the Santa Clara convent amidst an evening thunderstorm.
In Noli, María Clara is a frail and tortured character — even the convent’s dictum could not save her from the lust of Padre Salví. Derain then asserts that María Clara is a damsel in distress who was failed by every man around him, from Linares to Jesus Christ. In the end, she was a woman written to submit to the men and the patriarchal structures that enveloped her.
Finally, Derain reminded the attendees that Noli Me Tangere is a literary work of its time, and must always be viewed under that lens. “Hindi lang si Rizal ang author ng Noli,” he then asserts, “sapagkat ang mga tauhan ng Noli ay maaari lamang makilala sa isang kolonyal at pyudal na lipunan tulad ng kay Rizal.” Although fictional, Noli serves as a window into the past of colonial Philippines and the people that inhabited it. Rizal’s seminal work was a mirror held up to his people, a wake-up call and a magnum opus that remains and would remain important as Filipinos traverse the century and the centuries that will follow.
Originally published by Kurit Bulawan on December 30, 2022.
