Noli Me Tangere/Characters

In Noli Me Tangere, there are many characters that appear in the novel but have at least one role. Listed here are the nine most important characters in the story:

Crisóstomo Ibarra

Crisóstomo Ibarra, or commonly called as Ibarra, is a half-Filipino half-Spaniard who is the only descendant of the wealthy Spanish Don Rafael Ibarra. He was born and grew up in the Philippines, but during his adolescence, he spent seven years in Europe for education. Those years prevented him from knowing what was happening in his country. When he had returned to the Philippines, he found that his father had died and that the corpse was (supposedly) moved to a Chinese cemetery (but the body ended up in a river). He heard tales of how helpful and kind his father was and decided to honor the memory of his father by doing as his father did.

María Clara

María Clara de los Santos, is the most dominant yet weakest representation of women in the setting. When thinking of Noli, the name of María Clara is can be seen predominantly as image of ideal Filipina women. María Clara is the primary female character in the novel. She is seen as the daughter of Capitán Tiago and Doña Pía Alba. Doña Pía died when delivering Maria Clara. The poor child only grew under the guidance and supervision of Tía Isabél, Capitán Tiago's cousin.

María Clara is known to be Ibarra's lover since childhood. When Ibarra was away in Europe, Capitán Tiago sent Maria Clara to Beaterio de Santa Clara where she developed femininity under religion.

Later in the novel, María Clara discovers that her biological father is not Capitán Tiago, but the San Diego's former curate and her known godfather Padre Dámaso instead.

Padre Dámaso

Dámaso Verdolagas (commonly known as Padre Dámaso/Padre Damaso or Father Damaso), of Dominican order, was the former curate of the parish church of San Diego. He was the curate for almost twenty years before he replaced by much younger Padre Salvi. Padre Damaso was known to be friendly with the Ibarra family, so much that Crisóstomo was surprised by what the former curate had done to Don Rafaél.

He is revealed to be the biological father of Maria Clara.

Padre Dámaso is described to be snobbish, fierce and talkative. He does not control his words when speaking and does not care if the person he is talking to feels down.

There are also issues that he and Donya Pia had a relationship and they had a daughter which is Maria Clara.

Capitán Tiago

Don Santíago de los Santos, commonly known as Capitán Tiago, is the only son of a wealthy trader in Malabon. Due to his mother's cruelty, Capitán Tiago did not attain any formal education. He became a servant of a Dominican priest. When the priest and his father died, Capitán Tiago decided to assist in the family business of trading before he met his wife Doña Pía Alba, who came from another wealthy family. Because of their consistent devotion to Santa Clara in Obando, they were given a daughter who shared same features as Padre Damaso, who is Maria Clara.

Capitán Tiago owned many properties in Pampanga, Laguna and especially, in San Diego. He also managed boarding houses along Daang Anloague and Santo Cristo (in San Diego too) and had contracts for opening an opium business.

He is with the priests because he gave lump of money during ecclesiastical donations and always invited the parish curate every dinner. He was also with the government because he always supported tax increase whenever the local officials wished. That was the reason he obtained the title of gobernadorcillo, the highest government position that a non-Spaniard could have in the Philippines.

Later in the Noli sequel, El Filibusterismo, Capitán Tiago loses all his properties and becomes addicted to opium, which would eventually lead to his death.

Pilósofo Tasyo

Don Anastacio, or commonly known as Filósofo Tacio (Philosopher Tasyo) is one of the most important character in Noli. In one side, he is referred to as philosopher/sage (hence, Pilosopo Tasyo) because his ideas were accurate with the minds of townspeople. On the other hand, if his ideas were against what the majority thought of, he is considered to be Imbecile Tacio (or Tasyong Sintu-sinto) or Lunatic Tacio (Tasyong Baliw).

Filósofo Tacio was born into a wealthy Filipino family. His mother allowed him to take formal education, then abruptly ordered him to stop. She feared that Tasyo would become "too educated" and lose faith and devotion to religion. His mother gave him two choices: either go into priesthood or stop his education. Tasyo chose the latter because he had a girlfriend that time. Soon enough, they married. After a year, Tasyo became a widower while his mother also died. He took most of his time reading and buying books so much that all his properties were lost and he became poor.

Eliás

Eliás came from the family which the Ibarra clan downtrodded for generations. He grew up in a wealthy family until when he discovered something that changed his life forever. He is also the one who helped Ibarra in running away from the guards. He also save Ibarra's life and vice versa

Doña Victorina

Doña Victorina de los Reyes de de Espadaña

always ed dream to have a Spanish husband. and it came true but she don't like Don Tiburcio she just forced her self to be married to Him She fell in love once before for kapitan Tiyago

Sisa

Narcisa is the mother of Basilio and Crispin. Shows how Filipino mothers love their children.

Doña Consolacíon

Doña Consolacíon, el musa de los guardias civiles e esposa de Alferez

Other characters

Noel Alfred Ayie

Notes on Filipinization of names

Transformations

As it was mentioned on the introduction page, Noli Me Tangere was written in Spanish. Specifically, when Noli was translated in Tagalog language, many names were retained in their Spanish spelling. When later Tagalog editions came into print, apart from removal of diacritics, names were also modified into Tagalog orthography. Even though many names in the novel still used Spanish spelling, vast majority is in Tagalog.

• Crisóstomo Ibarra is spelled now as Crisostomo Ibarra in Tagalog and English texts of Noli.
• María Clara is now spelled as Maria Clara, while others spelled the name as Mariya Klara or Mariya Clara.
• Padre Dámaso is now spelled as Padre Damaso, other books use the convention Pari Damaso (pari being the Filipino word for father-priest, even though padre is a Filipino word too). In English, Father Damaso is used.
• Capitán Tiago is now spelled as Kapitang Tiyago or Kapitan Tiyago, although in English it is widely known as Captain Tiyago or Captain Tiago.
• Filósofo Tasyo is spelled now as Pilosopong Tasyo or Pilosopo Tasyo. In English, it is either Pilosopo Tacio, Sage Tacio, Sage Tasyo, or any word that describes somebody who has incredible intelligence. Tacio can also be an alternate for Tasyo.
• Eliás is now spelled as Elias. Elijah is not acceptable.
• Doña Consolacíon is now spelled as Donya Consolacion. (see below)
• Alferez is now spelled as Alperes. English texts employ the use of Alferez although some uses the word's semi-equivalent, lieutenant-general.
• Gobernador General is now spelled as Gobernador Heneral (or with the dash in between the words Gobernador and Heneral). In English, it is Governor-general.
• Teniente is now spelled as tinyente or tenyente. In English, it is lieutenant.
• Guardia Civil is now spelled as guardiya sibil, guwardiya sibil or guardia sibil. In English, it is civil guard.
• Gobernadorcillo is now spelled as gobernadorsilyo. In English it is still spelled the same way as Spanish.

Honorific titles

Being in hispanic society, Spanish honorific titles such as the following below is used. hereby accompanied some transformation of those titles when Noli was translated in Filipino and English:

Honorific titles

Original Spanish	In Filipino/Tagalog translation	In English translation
Don	don, ginoo	Don, sir, master, mister, Mr.
Doña	donya, ginang	Doña, madame, Mrs.
Señor	senyor, ginoo	Señor, mister, Mr.
Señorita	senyorita, binibini	Señorita, miss, Ms.