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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
The rich student Makaraig’s house serves as a gathering place for other students during breaks and after class. Students talk, write, eat, drink, play music, and gamble. Isagani and Sandoval, a Spanish student who supports the Filipino cause, discuss their petition for the Spanish-language academy. Isagani and Sandoval are optimistic, whereas Pecson, another student leader, is convinced the friars will sabotage their plans. Pecson’s dour jokes irritate Sandoval, who waxes poetically about Spain and the future of full Spanish citizenship awaiting the Philippines. Juanito Peláez opportunistically joins the optimists. Pecson asks what they will do if their petition is denied and points out that Sandoval’s noble declaration that he will “throw down the gauntlet” may be possible for Sandoval, a Spaniard, but it would result in harsh punishment for the rest of them.
Makaraig’s family’s largesse allows him to assume a leadership position in the student movement, as he offers the students a space to congregate and discuss that isn’t surveilled by the priests (at least not overtly). In this sense Makaraig represents the rising indio and mestizo middle class, whose unsatisfied demands for inclusion in society eventually turn into an outright struggle for independence. Sandoval’s sympathy for the Filipino cause isn’t enough to cure him of his Spanish colonial biases, as he consistently forgets that kinds of passionate declarations that in his case would be dismissed as excessive zeal for justice would have his comrades arrested. Pecson’s pragmatism is contrasted to Isagani and Sandoval’s romantic idealism, while Juanito’s opportunism represents yet another possible reaction to the students’ increased politicization.
Themes
Makaraig arrives and informs the other students that Father Irene has taken their side, though most of the other power brokers are opposed to them. Irene, however, cleverly passed the decision on to an educational committee led by Don Custodio, which took the decision out of the captain-general’s hands. Wondering how they can influence the committee, they settle on reaching the Chinese merchant Quiroga, either through his favorite dancer, Pepay, or his lawyer, Señor Pasta. Isagani volunteers to speak to Pasta, considering a direct approach to be more honorable—if also riskier.
Because the colonial government of the Philippines is not only not democratic and transparent but also blatantly beholden to special interests, the only way to achieve real change is by dealmaking with various powerbrokers. The question of the Spanish-language academy isn’t given to the educational committee because of their expertise, but as part of political maneuvering on the part of the priests. In visiting Señor Pasta, Isagani refuses to play by the rules of this game and attempt to blackmail and cajole Custodio, instead insisting on a more honorable—if riskier—strategy of direct confrontation.
Themes
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