Love in the time of cholera is a novel by Gabriel Garcia Marquez who was a Colombian novelist, short-story writer, screenwriter and journalist, known affectionately as Gabo throughout Latin America. Considered one of the most significant authors of the 20th century, he was awarded the 1972 Neustadt International Prize for Literature and the 1982 Nobel Prize in Literature.He pursued a self-directed education that resulted in his leaving law school for a career in journalism. From early on, he showed no inhibitions in his criticism of Colombian and foreign politics. In 1958, he married Mercedes Barcha; they had two sons, Rodrigo and Gonzalo.
The book details the love affair between Florentio ariza and Fermina daza which strectched over they’re life’s. After being separated by Fermina’s father and she is forced to marry Dr. Urbino which forms a marriage that last most of their life’s. The novel follows Florentio’s desire and determination that one day they willbe together again. The novel explores themes of love, loyalty and passing of time, it suggests to the reader that the world may change around people but they will still always be the same person they were before.
Key Quotes:
“Shoot me,” he said, with his hand on his chest. “There is no greater glory than to die for love.”
This brazen declaration is made in Chapter 2 by the Florentino Ariza at the Parish Café, where Lorenzo Daza buys him a glass of anisette and orders him to stay out of his and Fermina’s lives. Ultimately, Lorenzo does not shoot Florentino, but instead, cruelly forces Fermina to make a long journey through the mountains so that she will forget him. Florentino has courage enough to challenge Lorenzo, even in the face of his loaded gun, primarily because he feels “illuminated by the Holy Spirit,” which can also be interpreted as his blind, reckless passion for Fermina, and his ruthless determination to make her his own. Secondly, Florentino declares, “there is no greater glory than to die for love” because, aside from conquering Fermina, he likes nothing more than delighting in the suffering his intense, obsessive love inflicts. Strangely, Florentino enjoys the suffering he endures for love; his suffering sustains him, for he sees his anguish as a gratifying, strengthening experience that will lead him to his ultimate desire: Fermina.
“Fermina,” he said, “I have waited for this opportunity for more than half a century, to repeat to you once again my vow of eternal fidelity and everlasting love.”
Florentino Ariza makes this vow to Fermina Daza at the close of Chapter 1, when he approaches her at her husband’s wake, just after most of the guests have departed. Indeed, he has waited fifty-one years, nine months, and four days to repeat to her his vow of “eternal fidelity and everlasting love,” for he has dedicated his adult life to making himself worthy of her, and has waited patiently for the day of her husband’s death, the day on which he, for over fifty years, plans to reiterate his undying passion for her. Since Fermina had rejected him out of hand, despite their plans for marriage, upon her return from a long journey, Florentino is determined to once again claim Fermina as his own. It is this second profession of love, over half a century following her rejection of him, which begins the novel’s story of how Florentino and Fermina fall in love, out of love, and in love once again.
“At the height of pleasure he had experienced a revelation that he could not believe, that he even refused to admit, which was that his illusory love for Fermina Daza could be replaced by an earthly passion.”
This quote is excerpted from the narration in Chapter 3 in reference to Florentino Ariza’s unexpected loss of Virginity to Rosalba. Florentino’s one, isolated encounter with Rosalba aboard the ship to Villa de Leyva forever changes his thoughts on love and sex. Before the encounter, Florentino insists that he will lose his virginity for love, only to Fermina. However, when he is suddenly seized by Rosalba, in the heat of passion, he is overwhelmed by a sudden and intense physical pleasure, a pleasure so fulfilling that it is enough to abet, or at least temporarily alleviate, the emotional pain he suffers from his tormented love of Fermina. Following his momentary revelation, sex serves as an antidote to his pain, a transitory, however effective drug with which to salve his agonizing, incurable ache for Fermina. After he loses his virginity to Rosalba, Florentino continually uses sex as an addict would a narcotic, for it is the one means by which he is able to forget his heartache and his desire for the woman who is the source of his anguish.
“By two o’clock in the morning they had each drunk three brandies, and he knew, in truth, that he was not the man she was looking for, and he was glad to know it. “Bravo, lionlady,” he said when he left. “We have killed the tiger.”
When, in Chapter 5, Florentino announces that he and Leona Cassiani have “killed the tiger,” he implies that they have overcome any remaining sexual tension between them, the “tiger” representing that tension. Since Florentino first meets Leona Cassiani, there is an enduring sexual tension between them, particularly because Florentino initially mistakes Leona for a whore, which, in reflection, he recalls as the worst mistake of his life. However, the current of sexual electricity that runs between Leona and Florentino lessens in the years after their first meeting. After going to a movie with Leona, and seeing the enfeebled Fermina Daza hobble out of the theater, Florentino realizes that she may die before he has the opportunity to profess his love for her, and feels that he must renounce his determination to do so. Upset, he asks Leona to invite him in for brandy. When he tries to seduce her, she tells him, with the utmost sincerity, that she has known for a long time that he is not the man she is looking for. Specifically, it is this statement that “kills the tiger.”
Relation to feminism:
Love in the time of cholera can be related to its ideas on love and the responsibility of women in society. It describes different stages of sexual exploration in several different women and their personal attitudes on promiscuity. It can be seen as quite demeaning to women in the way that some women are overly sexualised and that is the main feature of their character, also Florentio is describes as a ‘hunter’ who takes advantage of naive women how are unable to think for themselves. However it can also be said to be elevating the status of women due to the portrayal of Fermina as the most important thing in the world to her husband and to Florentio. Although, it appears that Fermina has no real control of her own life and is powerless to the desires and control of the men around her, leaving her to feel confined and depressed in her long unwanted married life.
Relation to Marxism:
The novel may not be a very political novel but there are traces of Marxism within the book. It can be seen that the main characters within the novel are relatively rich and powerful in society, optimising marxist ideas of the bourgeois. The majority of characters seam unaffected by the ravages of cholera that effect the lower class,with the exception of Dr. Urbino who seams to have real compassion for others and spends his life trying to improve the conditions of the people who are most affected by poverty and disease.
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