Noli me tangere

 Juan Crisóstomo Ibarra y Magsalin (Ibarra)

A wealthy young man of mixed Spanish and Filipino ancestry who has recently returned to the Philippines from Europe after
spending seven years studying abroad. Ibarra is cultured and well-respected, though the friars in his hometown of San
Diego are suspicious of him. This is because his father Don Rafael was recently imprisoned and labeled a subversive and
heretic, a sentence that eventually led to his death in jail. Ibarra learns of this on his first night back in the Philippines.
Hoping to carry out his father’s dreams, he later decides to build a secular school in San Diego, one that remains
uninfluenced by overzealous friars like Father Dámaso and Father Salví, Ibarra’s two primary adversaries. Unfortunately,
building the school proves a difficult task due to the fact that Father Salví works together with a number of Ibarra’s enemies
to frame him as a conspirator against the government, ultimately forcing him to flee San Diego as an outlaw revolutionary.
This means leaving behind the love of his life, María Clara, whom he was originally supposed to marry. Ibarra is a politically
important character because Rizal uses him to voice ideas regarding colonialism and the nature of power in the Philippines.
For the majority of the novel, Ibarra believes that, although the Catholic friars and the Spanish government are corrupt,
they provide the Philippines with valuable support. In contrast to his friend Elías (a more drastic revolutionary who wants to
overthrow the country’s prevailing power structures), Ibarra insists upon reforming the Philippines from the inside out,
working with the friars and Spanish officials to bring about positive change without dismantling the system entirely.
However, by the end of the novel, once Ibarra is branded a heretical subversive, his ideas about reform and revolution
begin to align with Elías’s more radical theories.
 María Clara
A woman well-regarded in San Diego for her high social station. Having grown up together as childhood friends, María Clara
and Ibarra are engaged to be married, though Father Dámaso—her godfather—is displeased with this arrangement and
does what he can to interfere. When Ibarra is excommunicated after almost killing Dámaso at a dinner party, arrangements
are made for María Clara to marry a young Spanish man named Linares. She doesn’t speak up against this idea because she
doesn’t want to cross her father, Captain Tiago, a spineless socialite who disavows Ibarra to stay in the good graces of friars
like Father Dámaso. Later, María Clara discovers that Captain Tiago isn’t her real father—rather, Father Dámaso
impregnated her mother, who died during childbirth. When Ibarra is put on trial after being framed as a subversive by
Father Salví, María Clara is blackmailed into providing the court with letters Ibarra has sent her—letters his prosecutors
unfairly use as evidence of malfeasance. She does so in order to keep secret the fact that Dámaso is her biological father,
since she doesn’t want to disgrace her mother’s name or compromise Captain Tiago’s social standing. Still, she feels intense
remorse at having sold Ibarra out. When the newspapers eventually falsely report his death, she calls off her marriage with
Linares, instead deciding to enter a convent because she can’t stand to exist in a world that doesn’t contain Ibarra.
 Father Dámaso
A Spanish friar living in the Philippines, Father Dámaso is an arrogant and pedantic priest who, despite having lived amongst
Filipinos and hearing their confessions for over twenty years, is barely able to speak or understand Tagalog, the country’s
native language. A shameless loudmouth, he is unafraid of slandering nonreligious citizens who he thinks undermine his
power. Ibarra learns that this is exactly what happened between his father, Don Rafael, and Dámaso—because Rafael
refused to go to confession and supported secular means of empowering Filipino citizens, Dámaso jumped at the
opportunity to cast Rafael as a heretic and a subversive. As such, Dámaso is Ibarra’s most evident and outspoken rival, a
fact Dámaso seems to leverage by taunting the young man at a dinner party one night, making allusions to Rafael’s death
and insulting Ibarra’s project to build a school. Unfortunately, Ibarra is unable to ignore these provocations, and his violent
response leads to his own excommunication. To make matters worse for Ibarra, Father Dámaso is very well-connected in
San Diego, and he is María Clara’s godfather, which puts him in a position of power over Ibarra’s engagement (indeed, he
forbids her from marrying Ibarra). María Clara later discovers that Dámaso is her real father, a fact she hopes to keep quiet
at all costs because it would disgrace her deceased mother’s honor and her father’s respectability, so Dámaso gets away
with his corruption.
 Elías
An outlaw and vagabond revolutionary who resents the power the Catholic church and Spanish government have over the
Philippines. After Ibarra saves his life from a vicious crocodile, Elías swears to protect the young man from his enemies,
which are legion. Lurking in the town in the disguise of a day laborer, Elías discovers plots against Ibarra and does
everything he can to thwart them. He also tries to convince Ibarra to join him and a band of disenchanted revolutionaries
who want to retaliate against the abusive Civil Guard that empowers the church and oppresses the people it claims to
govern. He and Ibarra engage in long political discussions throughout the novel, each character outlining a different
viewpoint regarding the nature of national growth and reform. Elías urges his friend to see that nothing productive will
come of working within the existing power structures, since the church and government are both so corrupt and apathetic
when it comes to actually improving the Philippines. Ibarra is more conservative and doesn’t agree with Elías’s drastic
opinions until he himself experiences persecution at the hands of the country’s most powerful institutions, at which point
he agrees with his friend and accepts his fate as a committed subversive revolutionary.
 Father Salví
A serious and committed Spanish friar who takes over Father Dámaso’s post in San Diego as the town’s priest. Fray Salví is a
meticulous and cunning man who uses his religious stature for political influence, benefitting both himself and the church.
He is often at odds with the town’s military ensign, volleying back and forth for power over San Diego and its citizens. While
preaching, he will often have his sextons (people who tend the church grounds) lock the doors so that listeners, and
especially the ensign, must sit through long sermons. Unlike other priests, he refrains from frequently beating
noncompliant townspeople, though he applies excruciating might on the rare occasions he does resort to violence. On the
whole, though, he asserts his influence by engineering behind-the-scenes plans to defame his enemies. For instance, to ruin
 Ibarra—who is engaged to María Clara, the woman Father Salví secretly loves—he organizes a violent rebellion against the
Civil Guards and frames Ibarra as the ringleader. Just before the bandits descend upon the town, Salví rushes to the ensign’s
house and warns him of the imminent attack, thereby portraying himself as a hero concerned with the town’s wellbeing.
 Captain Tiago (Don Santiago de los Santos)
A Filipino socialite and well-respected member of the country’s wealthy elite. Close with high-ranking clergy members like
Father Salví and Father Dámaso, Captain Tiago is one of the richest property owners in Manila and San Diego. He is
concerned with making sure his daughter, María Clara, marries an affluent man with ample social capital, which is one of
the reasons he so quickly abandons his support of Ibarra when the friars disgrace the young man’s name. As for his own
disgrace, Captain Tiago is not actually María Clara’s biological father—rather, his wife had an affair with Father Dámaso
before dying in childbirth. This is perhaps why he is so concerned with keeping up the appearance of respectability, for his
own wife dishonored him. As such, he is blind to the vapid posturing of people like Doctor de Espadaña, a fraudulent doctor
for rich people, and his wife, Doña Victorina, an obvious social climber. When they present their nephew Linares as a
possible new match for María Clara, Captain Tiago is quick to assent, thinking that such a pairing will ensure respectability.
 The Ensign
A Spaniard in charge of the Civil Guard in San Diego. The ensign has a bitter relationship with Father Salví, since he thinks
Father Salví takes his position too seriously. To retaliate against Salví (who uses his religious authority to control the ensign),
the ensign enforces curfews that make it difficult for the citizens of San Diego to attend church at the proper times. Given to
excessive drinking and unnecessary displays of power, the ensign is married to a strong-willed Filipina woman named Doña
Consolación, with whom he fights day in and day out.
 Old Tasio (Don Anastasio)
An old man who used to study philosophy and who prefers secular knowledge to Catholicism. This atheistic worldview
attracts attention from the friars and pious townspeople, who call him a “madman” (or, if they are being kind, “Tasio the
Philosopher”). Tasio respects Ibarra and hopes dearly that Ibarra will succeed in building a school that is independent of the
church. When Ibarra comes to Tasio for advice, though, Tasio counsels the young man to avoid talking to him, fearing that it
will hinder the project to build a school. He tells Ibarra that people call anybody who disagrees with their own beliefs a
“madman,” which means that Ibarra should seek the approval of the friars and government officials before starting to build
the school. This, he tells the young man, will make it seem as if he actually cares what these powerful and influential leaders
think, though this attitude need only appear to be true. On the whole, Tasio is an extreme representation of what it is to
live without caring what other people think: though he enjoys a certain freedom of thought, he also isolates himself from
the rest of the community, ultimately dying alone with nobody to empathize with his lifelong struggle toward reason and
intellectual liberation.
 Don Rafael Ibarra
Ibarra’s father, who has died before the novel’s opening pages. Ibarra learns from a sympathetic friend of his father’s,
Lieutenant Guevara, that Don Rafael perished in prison after Father Dámaso accused him of heresy and subversion. These
accusations surfaced because Don Rafael refused to attend confession, thinking it useless and instead trying to live
according to his own moral compass, which was, Lieutenant Guevara says, incredibly strong and respectable. As such,
Father Dámaso started making allusions to Ibarra’s father while preaching. Not long thereafter, Don Rafael came across a
government tax collector beating a little boy. When he intervened, he accidentally killed the collector and was subsequently
imprisoned. This is when Father Dámaso and a handful of Don Rafael’s other enemies came forward and slandered his
name. Lieutenant Guevara hired a lawyer, but by the time he’d cleared the old man’s name, Don Rafael had died in his cell.
He was buried in San Diego’s catholic cemetery, but Ibarra eventually learns that Father Dámaso ordered a gravedigger to
exhume his body and transport him to the Chinese cemetery in order to separate him from non-heretical Catholics. Not
wanting to haul his body all the way to the Chinese cemetery and thinking that the lake would be a more respectable
resting place, the gravedigger threw Don Rafael’s body into the lake.
 Crispín
A very young boy studying to be a sexton, or a caretaker of the church. Crispín and his brother Basilio work tirelessly to send
money home to their mother, Sisa, who is married to a drunk gambler who provides nothing in the way of financial or even
emotional support. Unfortunately, the chief sexton falsely accuses Crispín of stealing money from the church. This means
that the boy has to work extra hard to make up his debt, though his elders are constantly fining him for minor or invented
infractions. One night, he and his brother are supposed to go home to visit their mother for the first time in a week, but the
chief sexton interferes with their plans, ordering that they stay past dark and past the town’s curfew. When Crispín points
out that this will make it impossible for them to visit Sisa, the sexton hauls him away and beats him severely. This is the last
time he is seen, and one can presume he died at the hands of a merciless sexton or priest, though a church member tells
Sisa that Crispín stole from the church and escaped in the night.
 Basilio
Crispín’s older brother, who is also training to be a sexton. When Crispín is dragged away, Basilio tries to find him
unsuccessfully. Despite the town’s curfew, he runs home to his mother and spends the night there, telling her that the next
day he will seek out Ibarra and ask if he can work for him instead of training to be a sexton. This never transpires, though,
because the Civil Guard comes looking for him and his brother. Basilio escapes from this mother’s house and into the forest,
where he lives with a kind family until Christmas Eve, when he goes looking for Sisa. Upon finding her, he discovers that she
has gone crazy with grief and is unable to recognize him. He follows her back into the woods, where she eventually dies
after finally understanding that he is her son.
 Doctor Tiburcio de Espadaña
A Spaniard who speaks with a stutter and looks significantly older than his thirty-five years. Don Tiburcio came to the
Philippines as a customs officer, but was dismissed upon his arrival. Having very little money to his name, he went to the
 country provinces of the Philippines to practice medicine, despite the fact that he had no training as a doctor. Nonetheless,
because he charged exorbitant amounts of money, people came to think of him as one of the country’s best doctors. After
some time, the townspeople discovered his fraudulence and he was forced to find another means of survival. When María
Clara falls ill, though, Tiburcio is once again falsely practicing medicine. His new wife Doña Victorina is a fierce social
climber, so she convinced him to go back to medicine, advising him only to take on extremely well-respected patients. This
is why Captain Tiago chooses him to attend to María Clara.
 La Doctora Victorina de los Reyes de Espadaña
A Filipina woman married to Don Tiburcio. Above all else, Doña Victorina cares about her image as a beautiful and admired
socialite, though she is actually—as Rizal goes out of his way to emphasize—past her prime. She is only in her thirties but
looks much older, and she quickly adopts the latest trends, often changing her patterns of speech to reflect the sound of
high society members. It is her idea to have Don Tiburcio treat María Clara. She also encourages him to bring along his
respectable nephew Linares, whom she is eager to pair off with María Clara when Captain Tiago—whose advances she
denied as a young woman because he was Filipino and not Spanish—calls off the wedding between his daughter and Ibarra.
 Doña Consolación
An older Filipina woman married to the ensign. Doña Consolación is a brutal, vulgar partner who berates the ensign,
engaging him in intense physical fights heard across the town. It is well known that she makes many of the ensign’s
decisions, and she even fuels his rivalry with Father Salví, encouraging her husband to take action against the priest to
assert his dominance. Rizal depicts Doña Consolación as incredibly crass and very ugly, writing that her one “sterling trait” is
that she seems to have “never looked in the mirror.” Much like Doña Victorina, with whom she eventually gets into an
intense fight, she believes herself to be much more worthy of respect than she actually is, constantly deceiving herself in
regards to her station in life. She even pretends to not remember her native language, Tagalog, instead speaking very bad
Spanish.
 Señor Guevara
An elderly lieutenant of the Civil Guard who deeply respects both Ibarra and the late Don Rafael. Guevara tells Ibarra that
he appreciated his father’s conviction and moral compass, which went against the church and Father Dámaso’s oppressive
dominance. He is also the one to inform Ibarra about what exactly happened between Don Rafael and Father Dámaso.
 The Captain General
An unnamed representative of Spain, and the highest government official in the Philippines. Civil Guard members,
townspeople, and friars alike deeply respect him and defer to his judgment, each set of people volleying for his favor.
Fortunately for Ibarra, the Captain General is not an enthusiastic supporter of the church and its over-inflated power,
believing that the friars have been afforded too much power in Filipino society. Nonetheless, he recognizes the church’s
influence and does nothing to impede it, though he does pull strings to have Ibarra’s excommunication lifted after the
young man’s dispute with Father Dámaso at the dinner party. Despite his support of the project to build a school, he is
unable to help when Father Salví frames Ibarra as a subversive and heretic.
 Linares
Doctor de Espadaña’s nephew from Spain. Linares has a law degree and is the most intelligent member of the de Espadaña
family, a fact that endears him to Doña Victorina. Eager to use Linares as a means of climbing the social ladder, the family
encourages him to lie to Father Dámaso, telling the priest that he is the godson of one of the priest’s close friends. Linares
gives Dámaso a letter—presumably forged, though this is never made clear—from his friend that asks him to find the young
man a job and a wife. Seeing an opportunity to ensure that his daughter, María Clara, doesn’t marry the disgraced Ibarra,
Father Dámaso arranges her engagement to Linares.
 The Schoolmaster
A teacher whom Don Rafael supported, helping him find a house and enabling him to properly do his job. The schoolmaster
tells Ibarra about the unfortunate circumstances in San Diego surrounding education, which greatly inhibit the town’s
students. Because the current classroom is in the parish house, the lessons are heavily monitored by the priest. The
schoolmaster tells Ibarra about his experience trying to conduct class when Father Dámaso was the town’s friar; during this
period, Dámaso forbade him from teaching Spanish even though the government had written a decree that all students
must learn the language. It is in conversation with this man that Ibarra first reveals his plan to build a new school
independent of the friars. Though grateful for his help, the schoolmaster is pessimistic that Ibarra will have more success in
establishing a strong secular academy than he or anybody else has had in the past.
 Don Filipo (Filipo Lino)
The deputy mayor of San Diego. Don Filipo is described as “almost liberal” and represents the informal party of the
younger, more open-minded generation. Like his followers, he resents the idea that the town should spend great amounts
of money on the yearly festival celebrating the various religious holidays in November. Unfortunately, Don Filipo works for
the mayor, who essentially acts as the church’s political puppet. This makes Don Filipo largely unable to bring about actual
change, meaning that the town’s power structures remain closely tied to the church.
 The Mayor
The mayor of San Diego is a conservative man who is devoted to religion. The mayor allows himself to be manipulated by
the church, thinking himself a pious man. As such, anybody accused of heresy finds himself or herself not only held in
contempt by the church, but by the government, too. Don Filipo, the deputy mayor, resents the mayor for blindly following
the friars’ orders.
 The Yellow Man
A man hired to kill Ibarra. This man helps build the school, engineering a large stone that he intends to drop on Ibarra on
the day of San Diego’s fiesta. When the time comes, though, Elías holds the Yellow Man in the way, and the stone kills him
instead of Ibarra.
  Társilo
A man whose father died at the hands of the Civil Guard. Lucas convinces Társilo and his brother Bruno to attack the
military barracks, telling them that Ibarra is organizing the rebellion. After the attack, Társilo is captured and tortured by the
ensign but refuses to give any information, merely telling them that he never had contact with Ibarra. He dies when the
ensign drowns him in a well.

Minor Characters

 Sisa
Crispín and Basilio’s mother, who goes crazy after losing her boys. Sisa wanders the town and forests in vain, hoping to find
her children, though when she actually meets Basilio, she is apparently unable to recognize him at first. When she does, she
dies of surprise and happiness.
 Father Sibyla
A priest in Binondo, a district in Manila. Sibyla is a skillful and sly debater who agitates Father Dámaso at Ibarra’s welcome-
home party. He is an even-tempered, rational religious figure that contrasts the absurd Dámaso and the corrupt Salví.
 Captain Basilio
Sinang’s father, a pedantic man who is the speaker of San Diego’s conservative party. An enemy and rival of Don Rafael,
Basilio fashions himself after famous Roman orators, advocating for a strict adherence to the church.
 Lucas
The Yellow Man’s brother. Wanting revenge on Ibarra, he teams up with Father Salví to frame the young man as the
ringleader of the group of bandits that attacks the military barracks.
 Captain Pablo
The leader of the band of “persecuted” men who want revenge on the Civil Guard. Elías meets with Pablo and asks him to
delay his plan to attack civilization, convincing him that it would be best if Ibarra represented them so they can achieve
their goals nonviolently.
 Bruno
Társilo’s brother, who dies the night of the barracks attack. Before his death, Bruno repeats what Lucas has told him—
namely, that Ibarra is the leader of the rebellion.
 Aunt Isabel
Captain Tiago’s cousin, and the woman who raised María Clara after her mother’s death during childbirth.
 Captain Tinong
A friend of Captain Tiago’s. Like Tiago, Tinong only cares about his own image. When it seems as though Tiago’s family has
been disgraced because of its association with Ibarra, he quickly turns his back on his friend.
 The Chief Sexton
The man in charge of taking care of the church. The sexton essentially does Father Salví’s dirty work, like beating Crispín or
hanging Lucas after the attack on the barracks.
 Victoria
One of María Clara’s friends, and one of her cousins.
 Andeng
One of María Clara’s friends. Andeng has known María Clara for a very long time, having even shared the same wet-nurse as
an infant.
 Sinang
One of María Clara’s friends and cousins.
 Iday
One of María Clara’s friends.
 The Gravedigger
A cemetery worker who, on Father Dámaso’s orders, exhumes Don Rafael’s body. Ibarra interrogates this man, desperate
for information about his father.