Abstract

Love in the Time of Cholera (1988) deals with the theme of love. In this novel, Garcia Marquez has represented love in various scenarios and through different characters. The novel projects every kind of love, such as; parental love, love for the opposite sex, and domestic love, yet love is not projected as a sweet and subtle emotion. This study has traced the elements of the destructive and deteriorative influence of love, which are analytically discussed in detail. The study is a selected work as it is limited to the mentioned novel. The method of research is Relational Analysis (1992) by Carley from the paradigm of Content Analysis wherein the tools of analysis are theme, characters, symbols and title. The novel is analyzed through the theoretical framework of Readers Response Theory by Rosenblatt (1995). Findings of the study have led to the conclusion that love has been projected as a destructive and devastating stimulus in the novel

Key Words

Love, Cholera, Deteriorative, Readers Response, Disease

Introduction

Love is blind; love could work wonders are few famous quotes regarding love, but love in the Time of Cholera (1988) has come forward with a distinctive quality of love; love has emerged in the novel as deteriorative and destructive in a sense that it has destroyed the souls of its victims. This study has come forward with a perspective that love is strange, and especially in old age, it becomes queerer.  Love in the Time of Cholera (1988) by Garcia Marquez was first published in 1985; later, in 1988, it was translated into English. It is a triangular story of love between Florentino Ariza, a telegraph operator, Fermina Daza, daughter of a mule trader and Dr. Juvenal Urbino, a rich doctor with ancient family background. It may be called a love paradigm because love, in the end, reaches a point from where it got initiated. It culminated in the heart of Florentino for Fermina; it got astray from the path, dwelled in the heart of Dr. Urbino and eventually reached back to its initiator, the lovesick Florentino.  The novel projects a very narrow line of discrimination between love and lust, “Sara Noriega calmed him with the simple argument that love was everything they did naked” (Marquiz, 1988, p. 172).  It is more incest oriented rather than generated through affection. Like the rest of Garcia’s novels, Love in the Time of Cholera is also rich in political, social and historical references like the banana massacre, liberal/conservative parties, Columbian history, the epidemic of cholera and war of thousand days and it also contains magical realism. The main theme of the novel is love; while the novel has certain autobiographical elements, yet this study is only concerned with the theme of love. 

The narrative is replete with every kind of love, whether family, mother, old, young, married, romantic or licentious. The novel delineates references for the destruction caused by a cholera epidemic, but its true essence is the search for love (Gonzalez, 2003, p. 377). Dr. Urbino, a prominent doctor of the city of Viceroy, after examining Fermina as a patient during the epidemic of cholera, falls in love with her; rather, he is obsessed with the passion of possessing her. Fermina is already in love with Florentino, but her father, Lorenzo Daza, is against this marriage, for he wants to transform his daughter into a rich lady. Dr Urbino turns out to be a stepping stone for this progress. Eventually, Fermino gets married to him, whereas Florentino is left alone. Later on, Dr. Urbino falls down from a tree and dies; thus; the halted love affair restarts with a fresh passion between Fermino and Florentino in their old age. Once Garcia himself remarked, “what interests me most in the novel is the analysis it conducts of love at all ages” (Bloom, 2007, p. 175).  




Readers Response Theory is a unique way of analyzing literary text; through this critical theory, the researchers have discussed the theme of love in Love in the Time of Cholera (1988). This study is unique as it has analyzed love through Readers Response Theory and has projected love in a very different manner as devastative and deteriorative.  Rosenblatt, Barthes, Iser, Fish and Holland are some main initiators of the modern Readers Response Theory. Richards is also one of the important predecessors of this theory who in 1929 (Practical Criticism) analyzed a group of Cambridge students by giving them poems without any guiding material and asked them to analyze the poems according to their response. 

In Readers Response Theory, the primary focus is on the reader and not on the author. According to this criticism, literature only exists when it is read against the affective fallacy associated with the New Criticism. Readers Response Theory works in a variety of manner, and it is sometimes termed as subjective.  Readers, while analyzing a text, may focus on style or identity themes, characters, actions and morals, diggers for secrets (hidden meaning in the text or symbols), and anthropologies like looking into norms and cultural values. According to Iser (1993), there are gaps in the text which the readers creatively fill though the text in parts controls the reader, due to which a tension develops between the implied reader and the actual reader. 

Literature Review

The simplest definition of Readers Response Theory is the reader’s reaction towards literary text and interpretation of a text based on his/her response. The most significant aspect of Readers Response Theory is that it could analyze literature in a variety of approaches. Any critic or researcher working on the Readers Response Theory can make use of feminism, structuralism and even psychoanalysis. While using the Readers Response Criticism, all the mentioned lenses of analyzing literature come out with one thing common that a text cannot be separated from what it does. The role of the reader is two dimensional;  his role cannot be omitted in the understanding of literary work as his response is quite significant and secondly, the reader does not passively takes the meaning suggested in the text; rather, he interprets his own meaning logically regarding the text (Tyson, 2001, p. 154). The interaction of reader and text creates meaning in this respect phrase by phrase reading of the text, analysis of characters, themes, and symbols work as filling the gaps by the reader, and he/she comes forward with an innovative idea pertaining to the text. Readers Response Theory emerged in the 1930s as a reaction against New Criticism in which text has the authority and is supposed to contain a timeless meaning. In the 1970s, it fully developed and got much attention. In this perspective, Rosenblatt’s Literature as Exploration (1995) is of great significance. According to her, a literary work cannot fully develop unless the reader, in the light of his own experience and knowledge, actualize and assimilate it.

Fish (1980) one of the propagators of Readers Response Criticism suggests that reading is a temporal activity rather than something formal. The meaning of the text is incorporated to the reader bit by bit and in this respect the reader is an ‘informed reader’ as he reads and derives meaning than to relay on the embedded meaning of the text. The informed reader is a competent reader and speaker of the language in which the text is written. He is fully aware of semantic knowledge and is able to comprehend aptly and he should be literary competent (p. 48). Interpretation of text by the reader does not mean that he could come up with any meaning. The reader is free to the extent of logic and authenticity while deriving meaning from the text. It may be equal to filling up the gaps by deriving meaning through reading between the lines and focusing on the themes and symbols.

 Interpretation of a literary text is a creative activity and to understand the text we do not require philosophy or theory. It is a more psychological phenomenon as every author writes according to his own psyche and intellect, and same is the case with the reader. He or she may interpret text from his or her own bend of mind. The work of art ceases when we fix it in forms and the creative element of that particular text dies. Holland’s The Nature of Literary Response (1975) played a key role in the development of Readers Response Criticism. In this book he has focused upon the creative element of the Readers Response Theory. A reader responds to a text in a number of ways like analysis, questions, summary, interpretive details, arguing with the author, intertextuality, analysis of words as they occur in the text and rethinking. The reader is the one who creates the imaginative quality of text for the reader deals with his or her own personal experiences while responding towards the text so he/she participates in the creative power of literature. 

Two readers reading the same text comes up with two different meanings because the text is not a dead entity it pertains to the personal experiences of readers, its meaning or interpretation vary from person to person. In this process a second reading of the text always carry significance and the reader may come forward with deeper insight into the text. Apart from experience, the knowledge of readers also counts much in the process of analysis of literary text through Readers Response Theory. According to Rosenblatt (1995) the transaction between text and reader is very important because both are crucial in the culmination of meaning. Reading of the text acts as a stimulus to which a reader response according to his own personal thinking. In this process the memories, associations and feelings play a dominant role as they influence the reader while he tries to interpret meaning. 

Before the Readers Response Criticism, literature was merely an accumulated knowledge totally depending on physical conditions. Rosenblatt (1995) further stressed that in order to make transaction between text and reader, there should be an aesthetic approach instead of an efferent approach. She has defined efferent as reading for the purpose of information like reading of any history book while aesthetic she has referred as reading for pleasure in which the emotions of readers are aroused and the reader finds a sort of contentment while reading any piece of literature. Every kind of text offers two types of meanings, determinate and indeterminate. Determinate delineation of text deals with the facts of text such as plot, theme and physical descriptions, while indeterminate meaning deals with the gaps in text such as those actions and symbols which are obscure and are not directly explained, they can give a number of meanings. This factor allows the reader to draw his own conclusions and understanding of the text. While working with the Readers Response Theory one should be aware of re-reading, this is very essential for avoiding misinterpretations of the literary text. Hence, the actual role is played by reader who could interpret the text accordingly and the interpretation may vary from reader to reader (Tompkins, 1988, p. 9).

Garcia Marquiz has written a number of novels; Memories of My Melancholy Whores (2005) is analyzed through the Readers Response Theory in which the researcher has focused on the content of novel. He has interpreted that the author has motivated the reader to dig deeply into the psyche of the protagonist instead of merely taking the reader towards the world of hero. Through the analysis of lines uttered by hero who is a ninety years old journalist, we come to know about his passions and later sufferings for a fourteen years old prostitute with whom he is in love and calls her, Delgadina. Like most of his novels Garcia has projected an idea of distant and unrequited love in this novel as well (Toni, 2008). 

Love has been projected in a number of ways by Garcia in the novel Love in the Time of Cholera (1988) and it has been analyzed in a variety of manner by different critics. It has been presented as timeless and ageless in a variety of ways, that may be the relationship of characters or symbols but at the same time these symbols and relations also project the destructive and negative side of love in the novel. In the end the relationship of love between the lovers is completed on a riverboat trip waving a yellow flag for representing cholera, which symbolizes that love is as contagious and destructive as cholera, especially in old age (Fahy, 2003, p. 23).  For some critics love emerges as universal, they fail to interpret the discrimination between love and lust. The language of love is universal and everybody understands love it makes people lively and passionate no matter what the circumstances are but excess of passions that are devoid of morals have turned love into a deteriorative stimulus instead of affection (Cianciotta, 28 ). Florentino tries to replace his love for Fermino with a carnal passion regardless of morality. The image of spoiled land during the voyage of Fermino and Florentino portrays destruction and symbolizes the destruction caused by love in the novel both physically and morally (Cianciotta, 2007, p. 3). America Vicuna is another victim of love who commits suicide because of the devastation love has brought into her life. She kills herself because she cannot tolerate the pain and insult Florentino caused her by abandoning her (Bloom, 2007, p. 177). Love in the Time of Cholera (1988) traces the life history of Garcia’s own parents, especially the character of Florentino. Garcia’s father, Eligio Garcia, was also as notorious as Florentino and there was a rumor that he had four illegitimate children. Luisa Santiaga, Garcia’s mother was courted by Eligio but her father was not in favor of this match and discouraged the romance between them (Fahy, 2003, p. 13).  

Theoretical Framework

This study is designed into the theoretical frame work of Readers Response Theory by Rosenblatt (1995) in order to analyze love as a destructive and carnal passion. Readers Response Criticism is related to the analysis of any literary text according to the response of reader. Tompkins (1988) asserts that a work cannot be understood without its results that may be psychological or other. Therefore, to analyze love as a deteriorative stimulus in the selected novel determinate and indeterminate elements of Readers Response Theory as suggested by Rosenblatt (1995) are applied by the researchers. Within the angle of determinate analysis theme and characters are explained in order to represent the destructive aspect of love whereas the symbols and title are analyzed under an indeterminate angle to authenticate the findings. 

Methodology

The method adopted for this research is Relational Analysis (1992) by Carley from Content Analysis. According to Berelson (1971) Content Analysis deals with internal elements and content of the text (p. 74). Text is a combination of various words, themes, symbols, concepts, phrases, sentences and characters Content Analysis is used to determine the presence of all these elements in the text in an objective manner. Any communicative aspect such as; books, essays, newspaper headlines, interviews, historical documents, discussions and speeches etc. could be termed as content. For the purpose of conducting a Content Analysis, the text is broken down into different parts regarding words, sentence, theme, word sense and phrase. Then it is examined with the application of any one of the methods of Content Analysis, Conceptual Analysis or Relational Analysis, while in some cases both of the methods are used by the researcher.  Conceptual analysis establishes the frequency and existence of concepts in a text while Relational Analysis develops the Conceptual Analysis by examining these concepts and their relationship in a text.  The researcher then comes up with the results of analysis and draw inferences pertaining to the meaning and message present in the text. 

Following the rules of Relational Analysis (1992) by Carley Love in the Time of Cholera (1988) is analyzed on the bases of Readers Response Theory with the tools of theme, title, characters and symbols in order to represent the relationship of these textual elements that have developed and projected the notion of love as a devastative and deteriorative passion. The above literature review has produced the following research questions:

Q1: How do characters represent the devastating influence of love? 

Q2: How the theme, symbols and title of the novel depict love as a devastative stimulus?




Critical Discussion

Apparently, the story of Love in the Time of Cholera seems to be passionate and romantic in which the protagonist bears with patience the hurdles and eventually, despite time and old age love emerges as a victor. The union of Florentino and Fermina in their old age is regarded by many as a victory of love over time and circumstances but behind this sentimental love story lays a deep critique of love which is unethical and contagious to the point of decay. As old age is considered to be the end phase of life and it is generally associated with death. In the same manner Garcia has presented an idea of love which is fulfilled in old age. The novel exemplifies love as a carnal passion, which has reached its climax in the old age and the anticlimax is death both of the body and love. Love is a sweet passion and it is mostly related to sweet things like flowers; when one thinks about love he narrates it with beautiful imagery.  It seldom occurs that the author will affiliate love with decay and death or symbolize it with anything that is rotten for love is a sublime passion that is assumed to produce sublime and subtle feelings. To the contrary, Love in the Time of Cholera equates love to a bacterial disease of the intestine, cholera. Therefore, to explore and analyze this uncanny and uncommon presentation of love the researchers have analyzed different characters, title, theme and symbols.




Analysis of Characters

The characters of Love in the Time of Cholera live in regret due to their mistakes; they are problematic and complex. They fall in love and then fall out of love like Fermina. They are the victims of love struggling with solitude and loneliness; they are captured in between reality and fantasy, loss and desire, Garcia (1988) has rightly said in the novel, “nothing in the world more is difficult than love” (p. 213). The most affected victim of love is Florentino Ariza, who is an illegitimate son of Don Pius V Loayza. To quote in his own words “Love is the only thing that interests me…” (p. 145). His lasting love for Fermina appeals to many as it is sentimental, persistent and an admirable passion but Florentino himself is not an admirable character. The influence of love has made him obsessed with sex he is selfish and callous. His love has blinded him to other’s needs he indulges in love affairs with teenage girls and married women. He is responsible for the death of two women, one commits suicide while other is killed by her husband. He begins to work for his uncle’s River- Transport Company after Fermina rejected his love. He works industriously for reaching a higher rank in order to win back Fermina’s love “fifty-one years nine months and four days” (p. 105) he waited for the purpose.  

At least he has had affairs with 622 women during all these years just for providing solace to his aching heart. During all these years he has been praying for Dr. Urbino’s death after that he intends to wow back his love, “I have waited for this opportunity for more than half a century, to repeat to you once again my vow of eternal fidelity and everlasting love” (p. 50). His appetite for love becomes the source of destruction for others and also turns out to be deteriorating for his own soul. Love is a sublime passion that gives the most beautiful feeling of being alive but when affiliated with lust and physical contentment, it turns out to be a worldly passion, and soon dies causing the death of the hearts in which it dwells. That is the dilemma of Florentino rather his tragic flaw, which does not only proved to be destructive for himself but also for the people related to him. His love was pure and innocent only for the time period of their courtship it later turned out to be devastating and filthy because passions culminated into obsession.  He seems to be more lovesick than in love: 

Florentino Ariza wrote everything with so much passion that even official documents seemed to be about love.  His bills of lading were rhymed no matter how he tried to avoid it, and routine business letters had a lyrical spirit that diminished their authority (p. 145).

He is deeply affected by his love although he claims that he is saving himself for Fermina still, he has physical relations with so many females. Often cholera is equated with his lovesickness. In the words of Transito Ariza, “The only disease my son ever had was cholera. She had confused cholera with love, of course, long before her memory failed” (p. 189). There is a long list of females corrupted by the deteriorating stimulus of his love. Fourteen-year-old America Vicuna, whom he has seduced though she was entrusted to his guardianship, eventually this seduction ends up with her suicide. He is a selfish lovesick man with no conscience and morality. He only wants to satisfy his craving as after her death; there is no traces of remorse in him: 

Florentino Ariza knew in the depths of his soul that the story was incomplete. But no:  América Vicuña had left no explanatory note that  would have allowed anyone to be blamed for her decision. The family, informed by Leona Cassiani, was arriving now from Puerto Padre, and the funeral would take place that afternoon at five o’clock.  Florentino Ariza took a breath.  The only thing he could do to stay alive was not to allow himself the anguish of that memory.  He erased it from his mind (p. 301).

Olimpia Zuleta, the pigeon lady whom he traps into the snare of his love after so many advances she falls prey to death due to his love addiction.  After using her for his satisfaction, he wrote with red paint on her belly and her husband killed her when he read the words. Florentino is more attracted to widows for the fulfilment because in his mind he has already assumed Dr. Urbino’s death and Fermina as his widow. Prudencia Pitre is one such example with whom he seeks the comfort of love. He is lovesick or maybe sick in heart and mind because of his rejection in love. Florentino is so much obsessed with his love for Fermino that he even ignores his true love Leona Cassiani, an intelligent black woman whom he mistakes for a whore. She clarifies that she has come to seek employment, not sex. He provides her with a job at the Riverboat Company and she works hard for a better position but denies taking higher rank out of courtesy for Florentino. She takes care of Florentino after the fracture. She is the only example of true love and sincerity but gets no rewards instead Florentino uses her as well for the satisfaction of his love sick heart.  

Dr. Urbino’s love is more possession-oriented rather than some subtle refine passion. He has just returned from France after studying medicine and is in search of a wife. He is from the upper class and wears his aristocracy like a badge. Soon after her encounter with Urbino who is a truly dashing romantic figure, Fermina loses her interest in Florentino and accepts Urbino’s marriage proposal. While Florentino’s love for Fermina is deep for Urbino it is more mechanical and ordinary, a routine of life with no special meaning. It seems to have a destructive element for him as after marrying Fermina the worth of love ends for him as he is an emotionless person. 

He considers her to be his possession and instead of becoming more humane after acquiring her he turns out to be more passionless. To some extent fulfillment of love has manipulated his soul, turning him into a self-conceited person, once he said to his wife, “Don’t forget that I am the one who signs the death certificates” (p.8).  It later turned out to be ironical because soon after this he falls down from a tree and dies. Later he becomes more dependent on his wife and has a secret affair with Barbara, a daughter of a black protestant preacher. The passion of love for him as well is more physical and bound only for matrimonial consolidations, to put in the words of Garcia, “the only consolation, even for someone like him who had been a good man in bed, was sexual peace: the slow, merciful extinction of his venereal appetite” (p. 39).  

Fermino a rare beauty is victimize by love and sacrifices it for materialistic gain, she is a character who falls in and out of love without any moral considerations. Her taste for luxury is satisfied by her marriage with Dr. Urbino and she soon loses interest in Florentino. She considers him to be ugly and finds their love immature rather she realizes that she does not love Florentino “He is ugly and sad…” (p. 113). Through her, love is ridiculed and she seems to be the fountainhead of such devastating influence of love on Florentino. After her marriage she comes to realize that wealth cannot provide her with the kind of love she desires. Throughout her life she lives in an illusion of love instead of acquiring true love unless her reunion with Florentino, which again is not true love if it had been she would not have denied it on the very first time just for some materialistic contentment.

America Vicuna is the youngest victim of love in the novel. She was just fourteen years old when she was entrusted by her family to Florentino as her guardian and Florentino wasted no time in seducing her. “She was still a child in every sense of the word, with braces on her teeth and the scrapes of elementary school on her knees, but he saw right away the kind of woman she was soon going to be” (p. 235).  Regardless of his age he molested the child just to give vent to his unsatisfactory love for Fermino. This is the cruelest influence of love which affected America badly, consequently emerging in her death. A telegraph from Leona Cassiani about the death of America reaches Florentino when he is enjoying a trip on ship with Fermino. Instead of going back he turned a deaf ear to the news and continues his pleasures of love with Fermino revealing himself as a selfish and cruel person who is only an opportunist.

Analysis of the Theme of Love and Cholera

Love or the physical appetite in the name of love is frequently associated with decay especially the love of old age

 in which the body gives an odor which has been aptly termed as human fermentation by Garcia, “It was the smell of human fermentation, which he had perceived in his oldest lovers and they had detected in him” (p. 289).  Apart from characters the theme of love also reflects the havoc caused in the name of love. Garcia has narrated a story of love between two people, Fermina and Florentino who do not have any considerations of morals and their age with regard to their love. Time and again the author has affiliated love with cholera to represent its destructive nature, to show that it is as contagious as an epidemic of cholera and above all to ridicule the passion of love. In the novel, love could not be defined just in a single sentence to the contrary it is unpredictable and complicated. There are various kinds of love in the novel; young love, old love, innocent love and physical love. Every kind of love has projected a strong devastating aspect.  

The characters seemed to be more engulfed by love rather to be in love, and love has overpowered them physically leaving behind a vast void in their souls and in extreme cases taking away their lives. Though it has slaughter so many lives in the novel yet love itself has a chance at eternity in the form of the yellow flag of cholera hoisted on the ship in which Fermina and Florentino are travelling like newborn lovers. The main theme of love is repeated in the novel while in between the love triangle of Fermina, Florentino and Dr. Urbino one could see these characters struggling with time, age and cholera that provides a deeper understanding of love; love does not have a single interpretation it is difficult and unpredictable it could happen anytime and in any age just like a disease. Old age is more prone to illness and it is vulnerable to diseases, Fermina during her youth showed a resistance to the passion of love but in her old age she accepts the long rejected love.




Analysis of Symbols and Title

 Love is a synonym of sickness and illness in the novel which has affected the protagonist in its worst scenario that Florentino emerges as an antagonist. The readers do not feel any sympathy for him and they don’t empathize with him instead he is taken as a sick creature upon whom one may take pity. Love is an emotional plague which is more severe than cholera. In chapter number two of the novel when Fermina did not respond to Florentino’s love letter he becomes so ill that the homoeopath considers his love sickness to be the initial symptoms of cholera. Again in the same chapter for the purpose to acquire Fermina’s scent he eats flowers and drinks cologne afterwards he vomits. It is not only that he is physically ill but his physical illness symbolizes his psychological illness. The novel also deals with sufferings in the name of love and this is evident through the lives of various characters like America, Jeremiah and Florentino, who enjoys the suffering he endures for love and in doing so he makes the others to suffer as well. He enjoys the pangs of love and agony produced by it. The symbol of flowers indicate love when he eats flowers to get sick he in fact wanted to go through the feelings of pain repeatedly after experiencing the pain of rejection by Fermina. Whereas, the yellow flag of cholera is a symbol that he has completely surrendered to his love for Fermina just like a patient of cholera falls victim to the disease.

The title of the novel is a metaphor for decay and conveys the true nature of love as a disease. Florentino’s love is projected through vomits, false teeth and diarrhea instead of some refine and sweet symbols that exemplifies the filthy aspect of love as depicted in the novel. Love is characterized like a disease, which could attack at any moment leading the patient towards death if proper measures of protection are not taken.  A deep analysis of the novel projects that it is not merely a love story rather it is a story of love itself.  Love, in the novel has proved to be stronger than people as it has sustained the test of time and has the power to rule over them. It could take them towards devastation and could bless them with fulfilment even in the old age. The fundamental quality of this novel is to represent love as an illness. Love could be taken as a cataclysm, madness, pain in the heart, a fever and above all as a disease of cholera. The very title of the novel is symbolical where the author has made a connection between love and cholera. Throughout the novel cholera is referred as devastation, death and destruction; similarly, love is projected as a tool of death and deterioration, “the symptoms of love were the same as those of cholera” (p. 56). Love and cholera thus, run parallel in the novel introducing death, filth and decay. Garcia has beautifully incorporated the theme of love with the epidemic of cholera. For some of the characters it proved to be fatal, while for others it was a source of deterioration and devastation if not completely then partially. 

Findings

The analysis of symbols, title, theme and characters strengthens the viewpoint that love is not only ridiculed by  Garcia but it has also been portrayed as some engulfing entity causing destruction of those who are directly or indirectly affected by it. Garcia has woven a network of all these elements for the purpose of representing love in  a different manner. Love is the basic theme of novel which is running in between the reflections of magical realism,  social and political history and cholera epidemic.  Love is the language of universe, and through this universal language, Garcia has touched so many critical issues prevalent not only in his culture but present in the other societies as well. Deteriorative stimulus of love is a crucial aspect specifically highlighted in Love in the Time of Cholera. It may have various other positive interpretations for different researchers and scholars, as love is universal it cannot be limited to one single influence.  If it would have been limited to sole interpretation and representative of sweet and sublime emotions, as love is generally considered to be, then Garcia would not have given it such a title relating it to cholera. Definitely the author has some considerations for which he has paralleled love with a plague; it symbolizes the love addiction of Florentino to the plague of cholera that is responsible for so much destruction. The study concludes that love is a dominant theme in the novel although it is a positive and sublime passion yet in the novel Love in the Time of Cholera, it has been projected as devastative and destructive. 

References

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