Love Through A Psychological Lens
Love in the Time of Cholera is a novel by Nobel Prize-winning Colombian author Gabriel Garcia Marquez. The Novel was first published in Spanish in 1985. The novel is very interesting; it takes the reader on to a love journey. After all, what could be sweeter than the story of love at first sight? The story is basically framed around an unusual love triangle; it’s unusual because one of the lovers is not physically involved but instead waits more than fifty-five years for his turn. The story starts off with Femina Daze getting married to Doctor Juvenile Urbino, and after their marriage Femina loses interest in her husband. Florentino Ariza Her secret love, has waited for her and can’t stand a year longer away from her. He has learned what he had already experienced many times without realizing it: that one can be in love with several people at the same time, feel the same sorrow with each, and not betray any of them. Alone in the midst of the crowd on the pier, he said to himself in a flash of anger: “My heart has more rooms than a whorehouse” (pg.140). There are two ways to view this novel, psychological lens and Feminist lens. However, the psychological lens is more stimulating than the feminist lens because it’s easily approachable.
Femina Daze has lots of animals in her house and most of them are locked up and chained to trees, that perspective gave me a very broad thinking of animal abuse. She doesn’t have power in life therefore, exerting her power on the animals is all she has. However, her husband Dr. Urbino, was reluctant to confess his hatred of animals. He announces that only animals that can speak can come in to the house everything else has to go (pg.21). Therefore, Dr. Urbino buys a parrot and that parrot did not speak when asked to, but only when it was least expected. She had to get rid of her animals because her husband ordered her to and at that time frame women were expected to be submissive to their husband.
Femina Daze’s sexuality is very thought-provoking, though she has two men that are in love with her, she has no interest in either man. While her husband loves her as his wife, on the other hand Florentino Ariza is obsessed with her, but also he’s unfaithful to all the other women that he sleeps around with. As a result of his unfaithfulness, a former lover once broke in to the house of femina and stole all femina’s valuables while she and floerntino were together in the bedroom. The former lover printed on the wall “This is what you get for fucking around”(….). Another example of femina’s lack of power is that despite her disinterest in men, she married the second time after the death of her first husband. She married Floertino for the authority he offered. During the time period women didn’t hold any authority, and she wanted a man to stand by her and guide her through the dark nights.
Though she was married twice, she had to be submissive to a man before she ever got married which was her father. When her father found out that she had some sort of love for Florentino Ariza and that he wasn’t wealthy he refused to let them get married and suggested Dr. Urbino who was his friend. Therefore, she had no interest in him but married him anyways to satisfy her father. Being a friend of her father, Dr. Urbino was likely older then Femina which was common during this time period.
Works Cited
Bloom, Harold. Love in the Time of Cholera. In Bloom, Harold, ed. Bloom's Modeeren Critical Interpretation. New York: Chelsea House Publishing, 2005. Bloom's litersture. Facts on File, Inc. Web.5 Dec. 2015<http://www.fofweb.com.tacomacc.idm.oclc.org
Jennings, Arbolina Llamas. "Love in the Time of Cholera." In Sollars, Michael D., ed. The Facts On File Companion to the World Novel, 1900 to the Present. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2008.
(Updated 2014.) Bloom's Literature. Facts On File, Inc. Web. 5 Dec. 2015
