# Who is Ben Zayb in El Filibusterismo?

> El Filibusterismo by José Rizal

## Answer

Ben Zayb is a Manila newspaper writer and self-styled thinker who appears among the colony’s talkers — on the steamer, in salons, and in chapters that mock his “afflictions.” He performs science and art criticism while missing the political violence under his nose.

He is not a hero of the plot’s bomb. He is how Rizal stages the public sphere: opinion without courage. Searchers asking “who is Ben Zayb” usually meet him in school lists; point them to the colonial-hypocrisy concept and to Simoun’s contrasting silence.

## Evidence

- [i-on-the-upper-deck](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/el_filibusterismo_se/chapters/i-on-the-upper-deck.md): Ben Zayb appears among the upper-deck talkers as the steamer plot opens.
- [xxxvi-ben-zayb-s-afflictions](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/el_filibusterismo_se/chapters/xxxvi-ben-zayb-s-afflictions.md): A chapter devoted to Ben Zayb’s comic intellectual distress.

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