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15. Señor Pasta
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
Quiroga hosts a large party for the Manila elite, aimed in part at gathering support for his plan to establish a Chinese consulate in the city. Quiroga’s house is decorated in a strange, tasteless manner combining elements of European and Chinese design, all of which are clearly very expensive. Many of the guests are in fact Quiroga’s enemies, professionally and politically, including Juanito Peláez’s father, Don Timoteo. Simoun advises Timoteo on his plan to stockpile durable building materials and then have the captain-general order the demolition of nondurable houses. Quiroga approaches Simoun, an important confidante of his. Simoun brokers a close relationship between Chinese merchants and the colonial government in order to suppress native elites. The rivalry between indios and mestizos leaves both groups weaker than the Chinese, who use their wealth to influence the state.
Quiroga is the preeminent example of another important element of Filipino society: the large Chinese minority, many of whom are economically better off than the indios. Concentrated in cities and mostly working as merchants, the Chinese are forced to compete with mestizos for positions of secondary authority, an arrangement that works very well for the government and the Spanish officials who control it. This rivalry doesn’t prevent important mestizos like the Peláez family from working with Quiroga, who is an invaluable economic go-between, unpopular as he may be. Don Timoteo’s plan offers yet another example of how the thoroughly corrupted government facilitates and even encourages the illegal exploitation of regular Filipinos.
Themes
Quiroga explains his predicament to Simoun: hoping to buy jewelry for his mistress, he showed her several pieces, but she demand all of them, putting Quiroga into serious debt. Simoun offers to reduce Quiroga’s debt in exchange for a favor: he wants Quiroga, who is able to smuggle nearly anything through customs, to import and store rifles for him. Simoun’s plan disturbs Quiroga, but Simoun assures him nothing untoward will happen—the rifles are just for extortion via searches and seizures—so he agrees.
Even someone with as much influence as Quiroga is still under the influence of the Spanish ruling class. Simoun controls and blackmails Quiroga much like Quiroga manipulates those under his power. By now it is clear that Simoun intends to use the weapons he is stockpiling for his revolutionary plot, something Quiroga, who is too focused on exploitation and short-term gain, can’t even begin to suspect.
Themes
Back in the main room, Don Custodio and his friends are discussing the rights of indio soldiers—or lack thereof. Ben Zayb and Father Camorra, meanwhile, viciously argue about a new attraction at the Kiapo Fair, an American’s allegedly magical talking head. Ben Zayb insists he can explain the trick through science, arguing that mirrors are all it takes to deceive the audience. Simoun suggests that there is only one way to settle the debate: to go see the attraction themselves.
Despite his liberal pretensions, Don Custodio reveals his deep racism in the flippant way he talks about the severe mistreatment of indio soldiers, who the Spanish and mestizo elite discuss as if they were animals. Ben Zayb likewise reveals his ignorance when he brags and tries to show off his intelligence while discussing the talking head.
Themes
