In Love in the Time of Cholera, a novel by Gabriel García Márquez published in 1985, we are presented with a love story that must wait half a century to be consummated, which begins with two deaths: that of Jeremiah de Saint-Amour, a West Indian war invalid refugee, and that of Dr. Juvenal Urbino, who, upon returning from the home of his suicidal friend, dies from a fall in an attempt to recover an escaped parrot that had taken refuge in the handle of the patio of his house. Thus, love is presented as the main theme and, at the same time, becomes the lens through which other aspects of reality are observed. Among them, the economic condition and the class struggle, social conventions, illness, old age and death.
Love in the Time of Cholera is a novel dedicated to true love that endures and overcomes adversity for a lifetime. It is a tribute to love, adventures, time, old age and death.The novel was inspired by the way García Márquez's parents' relationship developed. To write it, he interviewed his parents for several days, each separately, to find out more details about how he was going to write the novel.
The story is structured in six long chapters without numbering or title. The author has chosen the voice of an omniscient narrator who uses time jumps to make us travel back and forth in the story. The hyperbolic style of the narration is striking, that is, the use of images loaded with exaggeration, which are absolutely significant in fiction. The novel is set in the transition between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, although the story begins around 1930, in a colonial city in Colombia. After presenting the death of Dr. Urbino, the narrator takes us back fifty years, when Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza fell in love for the first time.
"Only God knows how much I loved you", Dr. Urbino has just enough time to say to Fermina Daza, his wife; the same one to whom a little later Florentino Ariza, one of the attendants at the wake, will say: "Fermina: I have been waiting for this occasion for more than half a century, to repeat once again the oath of my eternal fidelity and my love forever".
Temporally, this beginning of the novel is set on a Pentecost Sunday in the early 1930s, in a Colombian city on the Caribbean coast that, due to its proximity to the mouth of the Magdalena River, we could assume is inspired by Barranquilla. A long jump backwards allows us to know the background of the story, so that we will not return to the initial moment of the story until we have read three hundred long pages of this novel that reaches five hundred.
Throughout these three hundred pages we witness, to a great extent, the "sentimental education" of Florentino Ariza, in love since his adolescence with Fermina Daza, with whom he barely exchanged a word; however, he maintained a very nourished and passionate correspondence with her. Upon returning from a trip to the interior imposed by her father (who wanted to keep her away from her lover), Fermina Daza suddenly realizes that Florentino Ariza is not the man who can make her happy and rejects him, marrying Dr. Urbino, whom she initially disdained. Although relatively happy, Fermina Daza soon realizes her mistake; she has repudiated the man she loved and, driven by a strange destiny, has given herself to the one she does not want.
While this is going on, cholera is raging and wars between liberals and conservatives are taking place, without affecting the life of the Caribbean city too much. Florentino Ariza, in spite of continuing to love Fermina, moves from woman to woman, from adventure to adventure, while he climbs the ranks of the family river navigation company, of which he will end up as president.
The love drama between Florentino and Fermina is anchored, precisely, in the social and economic position of both. He is a suitor with no paternal surname and no resources of his own. She is the only daughter of a mule dealer, determined to make his daughter a lady of society. In this equation, Dr. Urbino represents the aristocracy, not only in terms of money, but also in the dignity of medical practice, which makes him the "savior" of the people. He is the party that Fermina's father expects (and so does she, in a way).None of the characters dares to challenge social conventions. Not even Florentino himself, who patiently awaits Fermina's widowhood. Thus, the social issue and conventions are decisive.
Likewise, the disease acts as an indicator of the precarious social and sanitary situation of the city. This city still retains its colonial features, since in many aspects it is alien to the modernization process at the turn of the century. For this reason, Dr. Juvenal Urbino represents healing and, in a certain sense, progress, but on the other hand, illness is also linked to love. For Juvenal Urbino, treating the illness opens the door to affection (both that of the people and that of Fermina).
Even more significant, it will be the fact that love is compared to illness. In fact, Tránsito Ariza, seeing her son suffering for love, believes him to be sick with cholera. Let us see:
Touched by a fine and sharp sense of humor, love is represented by the author as a feeling capable of altering not only the emotional balance, but also one's own health and understanding. To love, like illness, is to suffer.
The death of the character Jeremiah de Saint-Amour opens the story. For him, old age is not worth living. But the love between Florentino and Fermina imprints another look on the golden years. Time and death are Florentino's lover's allies, even if at times they may seem treacherous. For the lover in love, old age will be an opportunity to see the dream of his life crystallize: to love Fermina Daza. Old age is represented, then, as a space for hope, as a time that can still be touched by joy. Time is eternity when love is kept alive.
It could be said that the novel talks about a romantic story, but it is more than that because it reflects on the manifestations of love. It is based on a classic literary cliché known as Omnia vincit Amor, which means: love conquers all. It is not only about victorious love over the problems of existence, but it is about thinking of love as that which nourishes life itself with value and meaning, that which makes life, old age and death meaningful.
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This story sounds very original. I like the fact that the author got armed with personal experience experience, which gave him a good perspective to writing this. Great book.
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