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Love in the Time of Cholera

Love in the Time of Cholera (Spanish: El amor en los tiempos del cólera) is a novel by Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez first published in Spanish in 1985.

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«The story takes place between about 1880 and 1930, in a Caribbean seaport city, unnamed but said to be a composite of Cartagena and Barranquilla - as well, perhaps, as cities of the spirit less officially mapped. Three major characters form a triangle whose hypotenuse is Florentino Ariza, a poet dedicated to love both carnal and transcendent, though his secular fate is with the River Company of the Caribbean and its small fleet of paddle-wheel steamboats. As a young apprentice telegrapher he meets and falls forever in love with Fermina Daza, a ''beautiful adolescent with . . . almond-shaped eyes,'' who walks with a ''natural haughtiness . . . her doe's gait making her seem immune to gravity.'' Though they exchange hardly a hundred words face to face, they carry on a passionate and secret affair entirely by way of letters and telegrams, even after the girl's father has found out and taken her away on an extended ''journey of forgetting.'' But when she returns, Fermina rejects the lovesick young man after all, and eventually meets and marries instead Dr. Juvenal Urbino who, like the hero of a 19th-century novel, is well born, a sharp dresser, somewhat stuck on himself but a terrific catch nonetheless.»

 

«The novel examines romantic love in myriad forms, both "ideal" and "depraved", and continually forces the reader to question such ready-made characterizations by introducing elements antithetical to these facile judgments.»

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Critical analyses:

 

The trailer of the movie of 2007

My video analysis of the novel

Assignment on one of the characters of Love in the Time of Cholera:

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«Dr. Juvenal Urbino della Calle impersonates progress, modernity and science achievements. He is a Liberal and dedicated to public reforms, elevating the standards of public health and culture. He is a prominent member of the local society, born in an aristocratic family, wealthy and influent. As one of the old and distinguished families in the city, he is used to getting his way and to being in charge. He has lived and studied in Paris, in an avant-garde environment. He introduces changes in what regards sanitary conditions to tackle the frequent disease epidemics. He is an educated and pragmatic man. He has a respected profession, as a doctor and he is the perfect gentleman. He follows the latest trends in European science, literature, and art, he is a great patron of cultural initiatives. He marries Fermina for practical reasons and his love for her is built on their communal lives, raising two children, having a good life and travelling for long periods. However, he reveals some conservative traits regarding the Church, the ritual of the mass, the roman-catholic tradition. He has only one serious love  affair with Barbara Lynch, which almost disrupts his marriage and leaves a wound to be healed together in their old age.»

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