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Summary
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in El Filibusterismo, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Colonialism and Identity
Violence vs. Nonviolence
Education and Freedom
Hypocrisy and Colonial Oppression
Summary
Analysis
An old, dilapidated steamboat slowly travels up the Pasig river, transporting passengers from Manila to La Laguna. The boat’s passengers are divided up like Filipino society, with Europeans comfortably situated above deck while mestizo, indio, and Chinese travelers stay below with the luggage. The Europeans, sitting near the captain, include some of the most important people in the country: the pretentious and racist Doña Victorina; the influential Don Custodio; the journalist Ben Zayb; the priest Father Irene; and Simoun, a mysterious and powerful jeweler. Doña Victorina is in a foul mood. This is typical, as she is renowned for her wealth and greed. The mestiza Victorina unhappily married a man named Don Tiburcio in order to become more European, but their marital conflict eventually led Tiburcio to run away to La Laguna, leaving Victorina to focus on marrying off her niece, Paulita Gómez.
For Rizal, the Pasig river steamboat is an apt metaphor for Filipino society, as it both reflects the slow, haphazard historical progress of the Philippines under Spanish rule and contains within it a microcosm of the class and caste divisions that mark the country. Like much of Filipino life, the ship is semiofficially segregated; indios are easy to disenfranchise, but as in the rest of the Spanish empire, the blurry distinction between mestizo and Spanish makes establishing one’s race and obtaining the privileges that come with it a constant effort, as Doña Victorina’s behavior indicates. The other travelers above deck represent the various elite groups in the Philippines: the government officials, the press, the priests, and powerful business interests.
Themes
The other elite travelers attempt to keep up a steady conversation to prevent Victorina from butting in. Ben Zayb argues about engineering with a young friar, Father Camorra, pointing to various bridges and their ability to withstand earthquakes and floods. Simoun scandalizes the crowd by proposing a radical solution: a canal that bypasses the Pasig entirely. Don Custodio criticizes the plan only because he didn’t think of it himself, and he points out that it would flood many villages along the way. But Simoun is sadistically excited by the idea, and he suggests using the villagers as forced labor, referencing the pyramids and Rome. Simoun is confident that Filipinos won’t rise up against the Spanish, and he insults Fathers Salví and Sibyla when they suggest otherwise before he goes below deck. The other travelers insult him behind his back, speculating about his mysterious origin before slipping back into small talk.
Simoun scandalizes the other colonial elites because, along with eliciting their jealousy, he is consistently willing to give voice to the cruel, greedy, and reckless feelings that they are too scared, ashamed, or embarrassed to admit to. The others dismiss his scheme for a new canal not out of concern for the villagers it will displace, but out of ,fear for their own positions of power and their unwillingness to rock the boat, metaphorically speaking. Too used to their easy, comfortable authority over the natives, the other elites lack any kind of real vision, positive or negative, and are hostile to anyone proposing change.
Themes
