Anticolonial Melodramas: Gender Relations and the Discourse of Resistance in Noli me tangere and Lucía Jerez

Abstract

In 1885, Martí wrote his only novel Lucía Jerez, originally entitled Amistad funesta (fatal friendship), about the story of the love relationship between two cousins. Two years later, Rizal published Noli me tangere, now considered one of the most important works in Filipino literature, in which he described the oppression wrought by the Spanish friars in the colonial Philippines. Although set in different socio-historical contexts and with distinct intents (Noli me tangere is more overtly political than Lucía Jerez), these novels have certain romantic elements in common as both stories involve love affairs between male and female characters. Their focus on gender relations as part of the effects of colonialism is also comparable in terms of how they delineate the condition of imperial power through melodrama. At the same time, an example of the intercolonial alliance becomes apparent as the two writers similarly articulate the possibility of resistance in their respective novels. It has been argued that Martí and Rizal express “masculinity” and “femininity” in conventional terms, characterizing men and women based on their physical and moral qualities defined by nineteenth-centuries societies. However, as I show in this chapter, their novels show examples of flexibility and ambiguity on the limits of gender polarities.