Love as Disease in Love in the Time of Cholera

Introduction: Love as Sickness

The principal theme of Gabriel García Márquez's novel Love in the Time of Cholera is that love functions as a disease. There are a number of similarities between love and illnesses such as cholera: both can infect the body, mind, and spirit; both are contagious; and ultimately both can consume people entirely. The author presents numerous instances that validate this assertion, the vast majority of which involve the three principal characters — Dr. Juvenal Urbino, Fermina Daza, and Florentino Ariza. Márquez develops an interesting duality between the two men in this love triangle and their shared interest, Fermina, to illustrate that romantic love is highly akin to disease. A thorough analysis of the relationships among these three characters demonstrates that the novel associates love almost exclusively with negative consequences — much as cholera, or any other disease, brings suffering rather than joy.

Virtually all of the effects of love — or the form of obsession it takes for some characters — are far from positive. What is significant about this is that the novel chronicles a timeframe of well over fifty years and presents a multitude of negative occurrences associated with romantic feeling. The character who most fully embodies the sickness that love can become is Ariza, who falls hopelessly in love with Fermina after a single look at her.

Ariza's Obsession and Self-Destruction

During the initial phase of the novel, which occurs during Fermina's youth, a number of misfortunes arise as a direct result of the feelings Ariza harbors and appears able to incite in the young girl. Fermina is eventually expelled from school and punished by her father for writing illicit love letters to Ariza. Worse, the relationship remains unconsummated, which only allows Ariza to become fully consumed by a fanatical sense of grandeur about what he believes is love. This manifests in a number of troubling behaviors, including stalking Fermina and being arrested for unwanted violin serenades beneath her window. The extent of Ariza's passion and the totality of his infatuation are underscored in the following exchange, in which Fermina's father threatens him:

"Don't force me to shoot you," he said. Florentino felt his intestines filling with cold froth. But his voice did not tremble because he felt himself illuminated by the Holy Spirit. "Shoot me," he said, with his hand on his chest. "There is no greater glory than to die for love." (Márquez)

This passage illustrates that Ariza is willing to die for what he believes is love. The parallel between love and disease is alluded to here, because diseases, like passion, can also result in death. More tellingly, Ariza places Fermina's regard above his own life, displaying an unhealthy degree of self-subjugation. This willingness to neglect his own welfare entirely in the name of love is yet another negative attribute the novel assigns to romantic feeling, and it confirms that Ariza's condition is less a virtue than a symptom.

Urbino's Passionless Marriage

Whereas Márquez uses Ariza to demonstrate unbridled passion carried to a self-destructive extreme, he employs the characterization of Fermina's eventual husband, Urbino, for nearly the opposite purpose. Urbino is as devoid of passion as Ariza is consumed by it. His marriage to Fermina is a difficult one, and the pair spend a great deal of time fighting. It is worth noting that Fermina initially despised Urbino and only married him because her father compelled her to do so — another instance in which love, or its absence, produces negative consequences.

The irony is that while Ariza spends the majority of the novel pining for Fermina, her own husband — after considerable difficulty winning her — spends most of his life with her in a state of unhappiness. The following quotation makes this plain: "Life would have been quite another matter for them both if they had learned in time that it was easier to avoid great matrimonial catastrophes than trivial everyday miseries." (Márquez) The author's diction here is telling. The word miseries describes the couple's daily life together, and these miseries are characterized as both "everyday" and "trivial" — meaning that unhappiness is constant and springs even from minor irritations. When small things contribute reliably to suffering, there is little hope for genuine romantic satisfaction. Urbino's passionlessness produces a dissatisfied stability that is the mirror image of Ariza's destructive ardor, and it further confirms that even love at its most functional in this novel still yields negative results.

Works Cited

Márquez, Gabriel García. Love in the Time of Cholera. New York: Penguin Books, 1989. Print.