The protagonist and his country: A comparative reading of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Idiot and Jose Rizal’s Noli me tangere

This essay investigates the parallels between Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Idiot and Jose Rizal’s Noli me tangere. The focus is typological parallels: authors living in Europe describe a character returning from Europe to his own country. In both novels, the protagonist’s love for his country leads him on a saving mission, which ultimately fails, due to the overwhelming power of death and violence. For both Dostoevsky and Rizal, it remains open whether there could be salvation. Therefore, they use carnivalesque polyphony as their means of expression. The author declares no conflicts of interests.