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In Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s “Love in the Time of Cholera”, many types of love are exhibited including unrequited love, platonic love, obsessive love, innocent love and mature love. Set in South America in the 19th century, the author tells of Florentino Ariza’s great love for Fermina Daza - a woman he fell in love with at first sight. As a result of her father’s interference, Fermina has a change of heart and marries another man. Florentino spends the rest of his life trying to recapture that intensity of love with another woman. When Fermina’s husband dies he realizes this may be his last chance to be with her. After fifty years of unrequited love, Florentino declares his love once again to Fermina. They finally become lovers in the romantic setting of a riverboat.
While this may not be a conventional love story, the prose deals with the idea of love itself, and challenges conceptions about love only being for the young and beautiful. The author intended for all views and experiences related to love to pale in comparison to the true love acquired after heartache and over time. This is his way of not only making true love the primary focus of the narrative, but also of showing that the older and more experienced a person is, the more likely their love is to be lasting and real.
Because this is the primary theme of the story, the lack of dialogue is highly significant in that it is used as a way of conveying that mature love needs very few words to be expressed. Once love has matured, and the individual learning about love has matured from experience, then non-verbal communication becomes the most natural and fulfilling part of love. Florentino and Fermina spent "unimaginable hours holding hands in the armchairs by the railing, they exchanged unhurried kisses, they enjoyed the rapture of caresses." Accordingly, the author’s refrain from the use dialogue is not only a style choice but is symbolic of communication that comes from the heart; It is a way to depict the matured love of Fermina Daza and Florentino Ariza which is blessed with the wisdom and patience of age. In fact, at the end of the story when the couple is on the boat, they silently acknowledged their mutual love because "they had lived together long enough to know that love was always love, anytime and anyplace, but it was more solid the closer it came to death."
Long sections of the book are devoted to descriptive prose that conveys the inner thoughts and feelings of the characters far better than external dialogue ever could. At one point during their riverboat journey, as Florentino and Fermina paddle along the river, "the nauseating stench of corpses floating down the river," "the bogs of ashes" and "the vast silence of a ravaged land," are not only descriptive of the panorama, but are symbolic of the characters deep-rooted feelings about age. Though the description is written essentially as a parody, it is still far more communicative of the character’s beliefs than anything they could express verbally.
The extensive prose is also very telling about the setting of the story. For example, Florentino's elongated frock could be said to typify the extreme romanticism of the time. Along with the decay of aging experienced in the personal lives of Florentino and Fermina, the aging of South America and of the world in general is depicted at the same time. While drifting down the river, the couple is intimidated not only by the vivid and shocking images but also by the drifting away of time. The description of their surroundings demonstrates their feelings of loss and regret". . . the alligators ate the last buttery and the maternal manatees were gone, the parrots, the monkeys, the villages were gone: everything was gone."
Florentino and Fermina were able to fall in love with each other at the first sight because they were so young and innocent. Both were full of high enthusiasm and intelligence, both were rebels who acted impulsively and both were consumed by their irrational feelings. Not until they had experienced the pain of loss were they truly able to experience a healthy romantic relationship. Also implied is that when two people are truly in love, no matter how quick it happens or how unhealthy it is, the only pain to be found in love is the pain of separation. Therefore, true love cannot be destroyed by distance or difficult circumstances. When two people are in "true love", according to Marquez’ implications, no amount of distance, social pressure or conflict can keep a fated couple apart.
Despite all of the immaturity and fickleness as well as social pressures and family conflicts, Florentino and Fermina’s love manages to seem completely authentic and believable because of the author’s exceptional use of long-flowing prose and a distinctive absence of dialogue. In my opinion, this lack of conversation between the characters enhances the powerful message of the story by conveying the unspoken communication that is present only in the type of mature love Florentino and Fermina shared.
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