Isagani Character Analysis

The listeners’ enthusiasm became delirious. Isagani hugged Sandoval. Others followed suit. They spoke of their country, of the union, of brotherhood, of fidelity. The Filipinos claimed that if all Spaniards were like Sandoval, everyone in the Philippines would be Sandovals, too. Sandoval’s eyes shone. One might even have believed that if in that moment anyone at all had thrown down a gauntlet, he would have mounted his steed to kill on the Philippines’ behalf.

Only the wet blanket responded. “Fine, very nice, Sandoval. If I were from the Peninsula, I would say the same thing. But since that’s not the case, if I had said half of what you did, you would label me a filibustero.”

“Well, confine yourself to learning how to apply plasters and leeches and don’t try to make your mates’ lot either better or worse. When you get your license, marry a rich, devout young woman, practice well, make money, fly from anything that has to do with the general state of the country, attend mass, go to confession and take communion when everybody else does [...] Always remember that charity begins at home. Man should not seek more than the highest form of his own happiness on this earth, as Bentham says. If you have to tilt at windmills, you will end up with no career, no marriage, nothing. Everyone will abandon you and the first ones to laugh at your naiveté will be those very peasants themselves. Believe me, when you have gray hair like mine—like this!—you’ll remember what I said and see I was right.”

“The French language really doesn’t have the rich sonority or the varied and elegant cadences of the Castilian language. I cannot fathom, I cannot imagine, I cannot formulate an idea of French orators and I doubt they have ever existed, nor could they exist in the true sense of the word, in the strict sense of the idea.”

But Paulita had heard that to get to Isagani’s village you had to go through mountains where there was an abundance of little leeches and just thinking about it made the coward in her tremble convulsively. Spoiled and indulged, she simply said that she would only travel there by coach or train.

Isagani, who had by then forgotten all his pessimism and now could see everywhere only roses without thorns, said to her, “Soon every island will be crisscrossed by a network of steel, ‘Where rapid / and fleeting / locomotives / speeding will go,’ as someone once said. Then the most beautiful corners of the archipelago will be open to everyone.”

“Then? When? When I’m old?”

“Oh, you have no idea what we’ll be able to do in just a few years,” Isagani replied.

“Get rid of them and the indio will cease to exist. The friar is the father, the indio is the word! The friar is the sculptor, the indio the statue, because everything we are, everything we think, and everything we do we owe to the friars, to their patience, to their work, to their three centuries of modification of what Nature afforded us. And in a Philippines without friars or indios, what will happen to the poor government, in the hands of the Chinese?”

“I agree with you that we have our defects. But whose fault is that? Yours, after three and a half centuries of our education in your hands, or ours, when we bow down in the face of everything? If after three and a half centuries the sculptor has only been able to create a caricature, it will almost definitely come out poorly done.”

“Or perhaps the clay is inadequate…”

“Even less adept then, because if the clay is so inadequate, why waste the time? But he’s not only inept, he’s a fraud and a thief, because even knowing that his work is useless, he continues to do it just to get paid. And he’s not only inept and a thief, he’s corrupt, because he opposes any other sculptor who wants to try out his own talent to see if it’s worth the effort. The fatal jealousy of the incompetent!”

The listeners’ enthusiasm became delirious. Isagani hugged Sandoval. Others followed suit. They spoke of their country, of the union, of brotherhood, of fidelity. The Filipinos claimed that if all Spaniards were like Sandoval, everyone in the Philippines would be Sandovals, too. Sandoval’s eyes shone. One might even have believed that if in that moment anyone at all had thrown down a gauntlet, he would have mounted his steed to kill on the Philippines’ behalf.

Only the wet blanket responded. “Fine, very nice, Sandoval. If I were from the Peninsula, I would say the same thing. But since that’s not the case, if I had said half of what you did, you would label me a filibustero.”

“Well, confine yourself to learning how to apply plasters and leeches and don’t try to make your mates’ lot either better or worse. When you get your license, marry a rich, devout young woman, practice well, make money, fly from anything that has to do with the general state of the country, attend mass, go to confession and take communion when everybody else does [...] Always remember that charity begins at home. Man should not seek more than the highest form of his own happiness on this earth, as Bentham says. If you have to tilt at windmills, you will end up with no career, no marriage, nothing. Everyone will abandon you and the first ones to laugh at your naiveté will be those very peasants themselves. Believe me, when you have gray hair like mine—like this!—you’ll remember what I said and see I was right.”

“The French language really doesn’t have the rich sonority or the varied and elegant cadences of the Castilian language. I cannot fathom, I cannot imagine, I cannot formulate an idea of French orators and I doubt they have ever existed, nor could they exist in the true sense of the word, in the strict sense of the idea.”

But Paulita had heard that to get to Isagani’s village you had to go through mountains where there was an abundance of little leeches and just thinking about it made the coward in her tremble convulsively. Spoiled and indulged, she simply said that she would only travel there by coach or train.

Isagani, who had by then forgotten all his pessimism and now could see everywhere only roses without thorns, said to her, “Soon every island will be crisscrossed by a network of steel, ‘Where rapid / and fleeting / locomotives / speeding will go,’ as someone once said. Then the most beautiful corners of the archipelago will be open to everyone.”

“Then? When? When I’m old?”

“Oh, you have no idea what we’ll be able to do in just a few years,” Isagani replied.

“Get rid of them and the indio will cease to exist. The friar is the father, the indio is the word! The friar is the sculptor, the indio the statue, because everything we are, everything we think, and everything we do we owe to the friars, to their patience, to their work, to their three centuries of modification of what Nature afforded us. And in a Philippines without friars or indios, what will happen to the poor government, in the hands of the Chinese?”

“I agree with you that we have our defects. But whose fault is that? Yours, after three and a half centuries of our education in your hands, or ours, when we bow down in the face of everything? If after three and a half centuries the sculptor has only been able to create a caricature, it will almost definitely come out poorly done.”

“Or perhaps the clay is inadequate…”

“Even less adept then, because if the clay is so inadequate, why waste the time? But he’s not only inept, he’s a fraud and a thief, because even knowing that his work is useless, he continues to do it just to get paid. And he’s not only inept and a thief, he’s corrupt, because he opposes any other sculptor who wants to try out his own talent to see if it’s worth the effort. The fatal jealousy of the incompetent!”