A review by cora_hreads
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez

challenging emotional reflective tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

 Love in the Time of Cholera, by Gabriel García Márquez, explains the many distinct types of love and how they enrich the human experience with its different manifestations. Love in the Time of Cholera takes place in various locations in Colombia during the 19th century, and readers are taken through it in the perspectives of Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza, from when they met as young teenagers to their mid-seventies. In the book, García Márquez doesn’t discuss the conflicts within all of Colombia – instead, he discusses how difficult maturing is while managing all of the societal standards set for young people at that time. The special thing about this book is the dual narrative, which allows readers to see how differently standards are set for different social classes. Though the two characters have to address different challenges within Colombian society, there is a common thread between them – they must overcome conflicts regarding how they see and feel love in their lives. 

When Fermina Daza rejects Florentino Ariza, he makes it his life goal to win her back regardless of how long it will take. Florentino sees love in soulmates and believes that Fermina is his. Though he courts and loves hundreds of women before finally marrying Fermina, he considers them as replacements for his true love. While Fermina is married to Dr. Juvenal Urbino, she does everything in her power to stay away from Florentino, even though she thinks about him often while living in different social classes. Fermina, however, is not sure how to see love. During her marriage to Dr. Urbino, she questions if either man’s pursuit, Florentino’s or Dr. Urbino’s, was even worth acknowledging because she hasn’t figured out what love truly is. 

…she loved him as little as she had loved the other one, but knew much less about him… a militant Catholic like him would offer her only worldly goods: security, order, happiness, contiguous numbers that, once they were added together, might resemble love, almost be love. But they were not love, and these doubts increased her confusion, because she was also not convinced that love was really what she most needed to live (García Márquez, 205). 

By understanding how both characters differ in the value of love in their lives, Love in the Time of Cholera addresses the cultural conflicts which come about because they live in two different social classes by expanding on its main characters’ struggles defining what love means to them. Their definitions of love affect how they interact within their respective social classes. 

García Márquez has a very flowery writing style that helps him deeply explain and define the ideas in his books. His specific use of diction gives readers a clear insight to how Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza feel about love in their lives. Florentino’s feelings are that one love is forever. For example, when he visited Dr. Juvenal Urbino’s funeral, he “…placed his hat over his heart, tremulous and dignified, and the abscess that had sustained his life finally burst. ‘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’” (García Márquez, 50). By using words like “dignified,” “eternal,” and “everlasting,” readers are able to understand how strongly Florentino Ariza believes in his soulmate ideology. This also reflects on how dedicated he is to climb up the social ladder, even if it takes decades, in order to be able to reach Fermina Daza and overcome the obstacles that had previously prevented their relationship. 

For Fermina Daza, she is unsure about how she feels about love. When she was a teenager and still interested in Florentino Ariza, she would exchange letters with him that often did not reciprocate his complete feelings, as “In reality they were distracted letters, intended to keep the coals alive without putting her hand in the fire…” (García Márquez, 69). The metaphor that García Márquez uses there tells readers that Fermina used her hesitant feelings to give herself a sense of security – if she didn’t feel the extremes of love, she wouldn’t have to deal with them at all. This perspective would help her later in her life with Juvenal Urbino, as her lack of understanding of love allowed her to be free and independent within her social class. 

The cultural conflict in Love in the Time of Cholera was how the two main characters could come together, even though their social classes and ideas of love put them apart. This topic is frequently discussed in the book, as Florentino Ariza must consider it whenever he meets a woman he’s interested in. Also, readers are given multiple different perspectives of how the conflict is handled. For example, when Florentino meets Leona Cassiani, he has to understand, over time, that she isn’t regulated to her low class because of her dedication to making a name for herself. Additionally, when he meets a rich woman (Olimpia Zuleta), he learns that he must consider potential risks for himself and his mistress because of Olimpia’s fatal ending after their affair. In regard to Florentino Ariza’s development, Love in the Time of Cholera effectively addressed its cultural conflict through frequent discussions and the use of different perspectives on the same scenario. This is not the same for Fermina Daza, however. 

Fermina tends to stay in one area and manages issues within herself and her family. More often than not, readers cannot see how Fermina must overcome the difficulties of love, except for when she flees to her cousin, Hildebranda Sánchez, when Dr. Juvenal Urbino conducts an affair. Even so, she comes back to him quickly and does not address her bottled-up anger. Readers do get a deeply personal insight to Fermina Daza, but they do not get her understanding of the cultural conflict – in total, Fermina Daza’s perspective does not effectively address the cultural conflict in all of Love in the Time of Cholera because it is mostly one-sided with little variance in Fermina’s emotions and situations. Now, considering both Florentino Ariza’s and Fermina Daza’s perspectives on the cultural conflict within the book, Love in the Time of Cholera does a fair job at addressing how the two main characters could come together, even though their social classes and ideas of love put them apart. 

The themes in Love in the Time of Cholera are certainly universal – love is an emotion that everyone not only comes across, but also must deal with regarding their social standings. The deep emotions that Florentino Ariza feels for Fermina Daza can are deeply recognized across the Americas and Europe, as most of the cultures are based upon morality and going with a “gut feeling.” Fermina’s conflictions regarding herself and her family can be widely understood in the Middle East and Asia because the most important values in most countries are set in keeping a good family and doing what is considered best for the wellbeing of everyone. The specific details of García Márquez’s story may not exactly be applicable to each nation, but their hidden meanings and messages about how the two main characters could come together, even though their social classes and ideas of love put them apart, without a doubt, can.