Love and Cholera in García Márquez’s Timeless Classic

Posted on Sep 17, 2024 in Language

Narrative Structure and Content of Love in the Time of Cholera

3. Structure and Narrative Content of Love in the Time of Cholera

We link structure and content with this question: why did García Márquez choose this title for this story?

3.1. Content

Love in the Time of Cholera tells a story of a love triangle between the main characters: Fermina Daza, Juvenal Urbino (Fermina’s husband), and Florentino Ariza (eternally in love with Fermina over 53 years, 7 months, and 11 days). At age 13, Fermina meets Florentino, and after an intensive four-year epistolary relationship, she rejects him. Later, at age 21, she marries Juvenal, with whom she lives for 51 years. When Juvenal dies, Fermina and Florentino resume their love, despite their age (72 and 76 years).

3.1.1. Love

The title itself tells us that this is a love story. Love sustains the entire fabric of the story and justifies each page. It appears in all possible ways with varying intensity:

  • On one hand, we see an idealized, platonic love shared in Florentino and Fermina’s youth. This is love from the waist up.
  • On the other hand, we can describe the second kind of love as more emotionally driven and love from the waist down. It is manifested in a sexual way. It’s the kind of love that fills the void in Florentino’s life while he “waits” for Fermina. This love from the waist down also draws Dr. Urbino to Lucrecia.

The love professed by Florentino and Fermina is reflected in the intense and warm love letters exchanged during their youth. Many years later, in their more mature years, Florentino returns to the need to express his feelings in letters. Sexual love, driven by curiosity, also exists in absolute terms, as both beginning and end. For the elderly, love will become an everlasting love.

3.1.2. Cholera

All the events described above occur “in the Time of Cholera,” as the title suggests. The novel tells how cholera epidemics devastated the area, while the days and hours passed undisturbed for Fermina and Florentino, who, consumed by their love for each other or others, remained unaware of daily events. But the region was bleeding helplessly:

  • “His father had died in the cholera epidemic that hit the Asian population six years earlier.” – Referring to Fermina
  • The meeting, which felt sick with anger, between Fermina and Juvenal.
  • The endless journey on the river (the journey of Florentino and Fermina), covered by the flag indicating that those who sailed it had contracted this disease.

The word ‘anger’ also appears, referring to ‘wrath’ or ‘rage.’ The rest of the instances refer to the epidemic. Two instances are particularly noteworthy:

  1. Anger (wrath, rage, anger): The love of Fermina and Florentino survives the threat of the disease but not the wrath of Lorenzo Daza.
  2. Anger (wrath, rage, anger): When the corpse of Dr. Urbino lies before the eyes of visitors, Fermina “had to surrender to the intransigence of death.

In short, we have seen how the title of the novel introduces and foreshadows the content we analyze.

3.2. The Structure, Sequence, Time, and Space

The novel has a horizontal structure in terms of content, as each chapter is an extension of the previous one, enriching the whole. However, the structure is circular in shape: the first chapter is continued in the sixth, closing the book. The conception of time and a focus on the characters are the structural criteria:

  • The first narrative sequence presents a linear arrangement of events, beginning with the last day of Juvenal Urbino’s life. However, at the end of the chapter, with the appearance of Florentino Ariza at the wake, we find that it is a beginning “in medias res.”
  • The four central narrative sequences are a look into the past that helps us understand the content of the first chapter’s last pages. They have a clearly marked time:
    • The second sequence begins the story: the first meetings of Fermina and Florentino and their secret love.
    • The third sequence tells of Juvenal and Fermina’s love and how they entered into marriage.
    • The fourth and fifth sequences follow the life threads of the three vertices of this love story, the way to their destinations, linking Juvenal and Fermina and leaving Florentino aside.
  • Finally, the sixth narrative sequence picks up the story where we left off in the first chapter.

Overall, the storyline does not follow linear time. The novel presents the story sequenced with some events that take place following the conventional pattern: “In the beginning…. Then… Finally.” No: time does not flow through the natural path.

Time

The conception of time in the novel becomes the keystone of the story. We distinguish the following dimensions:

  • The internal time of the events as determined by the breakdown of linearity to which we referred.
  • External time responding to when the events described occur. There are numerous references to the period in which they develop. There are allusions to the Colombian War of a Thousand Days, we witness the memory of the first river ship… historical events are happening (the cinema, the globe, wars between conservatives and liberals, the cholera…) to anchor the fiction in reality. Moreover, many aspects of fiction are based on the author’s biography (Living to Tell): his maternal grandfather, that his mother did not want to marry his father (a telegraph operator, womanizer, son of a single mother), and to forget him, she sent him out of town.

Space is treated similarly to time, also configured as a structural element, although not as relevant as time. We are told where the events occur. The colonial city was the most prosperous in the Caribbean in the eighteenth century, particularly infamous for being the largest market for African slaves in the Americas. We cannot put a specific name to the city, but we can identify places visited during the characters’ various trips:

  • They moved to the Sierra Nevada, after a few days settled in Valledupar, and after three months went to Riohacha, where they remained for a year and a half. This trip deters Fermina, forcing her to get away from Florentino, but the distance will be saved by the miracle of the telegraph.
  • We also find these ports on the Magdalena River, where they dock on their final journey. Boat trips will lead to Fermina’s release.
  • Travel to Europe (Rome, Paris, London) will involve stimuli that increase their true marital happiness; indeed, when the first crisis occurs, the couple embarks on a trip to resolve it.
  • Regarding travel along the Magdalena River, the first one is made by Florentino alone. Unable to get away from Fermina, he will soon return to the city. He repeats the same trip (with a desolate environment and landscape), this time accompanied by Fermina; the experiences, therefore, are very different. Two identical trips, but with different elements.

This arises from a dominant narrative, which hardly lets its characters express themselves. There are very few dialogues.

Narratology:
  • Narrator: Omniscient (3rd person) to bring realism to the text.
  • Space: Real Caribbean, not invented.
  • Time: Flashbacks are used extensively, with chapters 1 and 6 framing the story and about three years of linear chronology in between.
  • Humor: One of the key themes of the story is a clever humor, sometimes bordering on irony and sarcasm. García Márquez uses it to lighten the mood.
  • Themes: The main themes are love and death, but also loneliness. All the characters are alone and overcome by the doubts inherent in their isolation.