Love in the Time of Cholera
- Gabriel Garcia Marquez
In
the late 1800s, in a Caribbean port city, a young telegraph operator named
Florentino Ariza falls deliriously in love with Fermina Daza, a beautiful
student. She is so sheltered that they carry on their romance secretly, through
letters and telegrams. A secret relationship blossoms between the two with
the help of Fermina's Aunt Escolástica. They exchange love letters. But once
Fermina's father, Lorenzo Daza, finds out about the two, he forces his daughter
to stop seeing Florentino immediately. When she refuses, he and his daughter
move in with his deceased wife's family in another city. Regardless of the
distance, Fermina and Florentino continue to communicate via telegraph. Upon
her return, Fermina realizes that her relationship with Florentino was nothing
but a dream since they are practically strangers; she breaks off her engagement
to Florentino and returns all his letters.
A young and accomplished national hero, Dr. Juvenal Urbino, meets Fermina
and begins to court her. Despite her initial dislike of Urbino, Fermina gives
in to her father's persuasion and the security and wealth Urbino offers, and
they wed. Urbino is a physician devoted to science, modernity, and "order
and progress". He is committed to the eradication of cholera and to
the promotion of public works. He is a rational man whose life is organized
precisely and who greatly values his importance and reputation in society. He
is a herald of progress and modernization.
Even after Fermina's engagement and marriage, Florentino swore to stay faithful
and wait for her; but his promiscuity gets the better of him and he has
hundreds of affairs. Even with all the women he is with, he makes sure that
Fermina will never find out. Meanwhile, Fermina and Urbino grow old together,
going through happy years and unhappy ones and experiencing all the reality of
marriage. Urbino proves in the end not to have been an entirely faithful
husband, confessing one affair to Fermina many years into their marriage.
Though the novel seems to suggest that Urbino's love for Fermina was never as
spiritually chaste as Florentino's was, it also complicates Florentino's
devotion by cataloging his many trysts as well as a few potentially genuine
loves.
As an elderly man, Urbino attempts to get his pet parrot out of his mango tree,
only to fall off the ladder he was standing on and die. After the funeral
Florentino proclaims his love for Fermina once again and tells her he has
stayed faithful to her all these years. Hesitant at first because she is only
recently widowed, and finding his advances untoward, Fermina comes to recognize
Florentino's wisdom and maturity, eventually gives him a second chance, and
their love is allowed to blossom during their old age. They attempt a life
together, having lived two lives separately for over five decades.
In this magnificent story of a romance,
García Márquez beautifully and unflinchingly explores the nature of love in all
its guises, small and large, passionate and serene. Love can emerge like a
disease in these characters, but it can also outlast bleak decades of war and
cholera, and the effects of time itself.
Click here to watch this movie :
1. https://youtu.be/nLV7vOkxqHM
2. https://youtu.be/7YiE67Svxdo
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