Analysis Of Gabriel García Márquez's Love In The Time Of Cholera

Gabriel García Márquez’s Love in the Time of Cholera presents the challenges of love within a wartime coastal city in Colombia. Scenes of prostitution and poverty are abundant throughout the novel. Through unrequited love and desperate affairs, Márquez creates stereotypes about women during the turn of the twentieth century. Love in the Time of Cholera is not a feminist work due to the oppressive societal stereotypes and submissive gender roles within the novel. At the beginning of the novel, Juvenal Urbino, a powerful doctor, doubts the capabilities of women. Being raised in a society that is prone to oppression, he easily says, “She did not have the patience to follow the complicated plot lines” (11). Urbino had been married to Fermina for

Within Love in the Time of Cholera, girls are taught to be submissive from a young age. Fermina attends an academy and it is said, “Young ladies of society had learned the art and technique of being diligent and submissive wives” (56). The City of Viceroys denounces women 's’ equal role in a relationship. The school within the city is further enforcing gender roles by teaching young girls their oppressive positions at an early age. The children will never be able to stand up for themselves in the future because they have been boxed into submissive ideals. The school not only taught to be quiet in a romantic relationship but also in familial affairs. Fermina’s father is a strong and powerful male figure that uses the poor culture of the city to get his way. When referring to Fermina and Florentinos’ relationship he says, “You and I have to talk for five minutes, man to man” (78). Daza persists that he must speak to Florentino about his daughter’s relations with him. By using a strong and powerful character like Mr. Daza, the author creates a character that can not be denied by either submissive Fermina or poor Florentino. When Daza wants to speak man to man he hopes that Florentino will see his point of view. This also takes Fermina completely out of the discussion and she has no ability to achieve agency in a discussion about herself. Fermina is not the only one that Daza manages to suppress either. Aunt Escolástica permits the love between Fermina and Florentino to continue and it ultimately brings her to her demise. When discussing what happened to Aunt Escolástica, Fermina says Daza, “Shipped her on the schooner to San Juan de la Cienaga” (79). He did not love his sister enough to let her speak her mind. She was shipped away like property and left to die. She had mediated the love between Fermina and Florentino and would never