Cholera in the Time of Love
Cholera in the Time of Love
“Health consists of having the same diseases as one’s neighbors.” -Quentin Crisp
As long as human beings live in social communities with each other, they will always be predisposed to being consumed by the promise of both love and disease. Perhaps, love and disease share a common purpose. Both develop from a physical exchange between two people that make for the potential to develop immunity to pathogens. Lovemaking may create offspring with a more diverse immune system; the spreading of bacteria like cholera may eventually find their way inside a patient capable of fighting the bacteria thereby making the human species more fit by passing this immunity on to offspring. The arcs of the lives of the three main characters in relation to each other in the novel, Love in the Time of Cholera, demonstrate
Gabriel Garcia Márquez’ suggestion that behavior in response to one’s love life parallels that of one’s behavior in response to a cholera epidemic. Marquez illuminates that one does not choose his or her time or how to die any more than he or she chooses when or with whom to fall in love.
Neither love nor cholera discriminates against or for the cautious, the calculated, the willful, the naive, the fickle, or the disinterested. And as astonishing as it is, Marquez’ cholera metaphor for love reads completely true right up to the novel’s end when Fermina Daza and Florentino Ariza commit themselves fully to their infection of this metaphorical plague requiring their permanent quarantine and exile forever.
The relationship between Dr. Juvenal Urbino and his wife, Fermina Daza represent the behavior of two people facing a cholera epidemic. Urbino, who diagnoses, treats, and eventually eradicates cholera does so by living a calculated life of his own choosing. Though he lives his life to thwart the death and mediocrity he perceived consuming every one around him, his life in
retrospect comes off as one lacking the
“Health consists of having the same diseases as one’s neighbors.” -Quentin Crisp
As long as human beings live in social communities with each other, they will always be predisposed to being consumed by the promise of both love and disease. Perhaps, love and disease share a common purpose. Both develop from a physical exchange between two people that make for the potential to develop immunity to pathogens. Lovemaking may create offspring with a more diverse immune system; the spreading of bacteria like cholera may eventually find their way inside a patient capable of fighting the bacteria thereby making the human species more fit by passing this immunity on to offspring. The arcs of the lives of the three main characters in relation to each other in the novel, Love in the Time of Cholera, demonstrate
Gabriel Garcia Márquez’ suggestion that behavior in response to one’s love life parallels that of one’s behavior in response to a cholera epidemic. Marquez illuminates that one does not choose his or her time or how to die any more than he or she chooses when or with whom to fall in love.
Neither love nor cholera discriminates against or for the cautious, the calculated, the willful, the naive, the fickle, or the disinterested. And as astonishing as it is, Marquez’ cholera metaphor for love reads completely true right up to the novel’s end when Fermina Daza and Florentino Ariza commit themselves fully to their infection of this metaphorical plague requiring their permanent quarantine and exile forever.
The relationship between Dr. Juvenal Urbino and his wife, Fermina Daza represent the behavior of two people facing a cholera epidemic. Urbino, who diagnoses, treats, and eventually eradicates cholera does so by living a calculated life of his own choosing. Though he lives his life to thwart the death and mediocrity he perceived consuming every one around him, his life in
retrospect comes off as one lacking the
Cited: Márquez, Gabriel Garcia. Love in the Time of Cholera. New York: Vintage Books, 1988. Print.