In Gabriel Garcia Marquez' novel Love in the Time of Cholera, we are treated to the long-term romantic triangle among the hopeless romantic Florentino Ariza; Fermina Daza, the woman he loves; and Fermina's husband, Dr. Juvenal Urbino. While this love triangle drives the action and decades of time that unfold in the novel, many forms of love are revealed by Marquez in the novel, from platonic to adulterous, besides the unrequited love Florentino experiences with Fermina. Despite the various forms of love, Marquez' theme seems to be that love is as much an illusion for the characters as are their illusions of society. A conclusion will address Marquez overall perspective on love.
In Love in the Time of Cholera, Marquez presents an unnamed seaport in the Caribbean where the love affair between Florentino and Fermina begins when they are teens. In a long-distance relationship, they engage in a passionate affair until Fermina rejects Florentino and becomes the wife of a wealthy doctor, Juvenal Urbino. Despite carrying on numerous affairs with a dizzying number of women, when Urbino dies decades later, Florentino returns to his beloved Fermina, only to find rejection. She harshly sends him away saying, "Don't show your face again for the years of life that are left to you...I hope there are very few of them" (Marquez 50). This example of unrequited love is a prime example of love being an illusion for a romantic like Florentino, despite his numerous sexual liaisons after Fermina marries.
We see that the love between Fermina and her husband represents marital love. Yet Fermina marries Juvenal because he is flashy and wealthy. Their love is another form of illusion compared to the unrequited love between Fermina and Florentino. Cholera is used by Marquez as a symbol to stand for the disease that can be love in the novel. All of the characters in love are affected by a form of disease, particularly the...