At the touch of love, everyone becomes a poet.

The most recent section of Love in the Time of Cholera, the third section, is oddly reminiscent of the first section in the way that the leading men find Fermina and how Fermina reacts to the men.

Lorenzo Daza encounters Dr. Juvenal Urbino in much the same way as he encounters Florentina Ariza, but of course with a much different outcome. When Florentino delivers a telegram to Lorenzo, Lorenzo ignores Florentino and even makes the messenger wait. Lorenzo, grumpy and rude, shakes Florentino’s hand but does not offer a tip. Lorenzo warmly welcomes Dr. Urbino, offers a large tip, and invites him in for coffee and anisette. These two encounters reveal much about Lorenzo Daza. It is obvious that he is a controlling man, one who is able to whisk away his daughter so that she would forget her forbidden lover. However his biased receptions of these two men show that he also greedy. He does not care about how Fermina would receive these men or whether they can offer her the love and support she deserves (although his pick of men eventually is the man Fermina marries). Instead, he looks for a wealthy man with property, class, status, and power. Lorenzo is greedy but is he trying to find the best man for Fermina or for himself?

From reading only the first section of the novel, I could tell this book would be one filled with opposites; novels about love seem to always feature those almost eerily convenient and ironic opposites, such as in Pride and Prejudice when Austen juxtaposes good and bad marriages. Lorenzo adamantly forbids Fermina’s love affair with Florentino, even though Fermina and Florentino desire each other. Now that Lorenzo wants Fermina to pursue a man, Urbino, she refuses and tries to avoid the Doctor; she even shuts a window Doctor Urbino’s face. It is also interesting to point out that Fermina is sent on a trip to forget about her lover and then Hildebranda also is sent away by her parents on a journey to forget her lover. I doubt that the journeys accomplish the purpose of the trip or anything else. Since Fermina’s exile did not make her forget about Florentino and actually only intensified her feelings, I foresee that Hildebranda will return home with the same feelings of unrequited love.

Although I could probably continue on with this discussion, I would like to touch on Marquez’s representation of love as a disease, comparable to cholera. Florentino seems to be infected by a deadly virus, which turns out to be a passion for Fermina Daza. His symptoms, his disillusionment, his sentimentalism, and his delirium, are a direct effect of his lovesickness. At one point in the novel, Florentino becomes so ill worrying about when Fermina will return his declaration of love and why she has not responded earlier, that a homeopathic practitioner called in mistakenly diagnoses Florentino with cholera. He vomits, faints, and becomes disoriented, all symptoms of cholera. He seemed to be a dying man until Transito, the doctor, and the reader realizes the “symptoms of love were the same as those of cholera.” The impact of unrequited love is emphasized when Florentino, finally having received a letter from Fermina, returns to a strength and confidence that he “had never known before” and because of this new attitude he lands a better job and has time to hang out and have a beer with the sailors (61, 74).

Lovesickness, not cholera, is the true plague of this story. (585)

Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future.

There is no doubt that Jason is a despicable, self-pitying, and bitter man. Yet he still remains Mrs. Compson’s favorite child. My confusion lies within this contradiction.

Jason has always been the family trouble maker. As a child, he ripped up Benji’s dolls and then denied his hurtful actions. It is unclear whether Jason never enjoyed playing with his siblings and therefore displayed a hostile disposition or his mean-spirited personality drove away his siblings. Regardless, his greedy personality as a child definitely foreshadows his horrible relationship with his family, except his mother.

Jason adamantly believes that he has been wronged, in every way, and therefore proceeds to torment everyone. He has no concerns about how his actions affect his family members because he thinks he is taking rightful vengeance. For Jason, it is always how his parents and siblings’ actions have negatively affected him. He is resentful of Caddy for costing him the job at Herbert’s bank. In reality, Jason would never have gotten the job offer in the first place if Caddy had not been engaged to Herbert. Continually stealing from Miss Quentin, Jason acquires every cent Caddy sends her daughter. He even resorts to trickery in order to get more money and then spends it on the cotton market. What is annoying about Jason is that he constantly complains about how he must support the entire family, but he does not put Caddy’s money to good use. Jason argues with his mother about what to do with Miss Quentin, a wild child often missing from school. His uncontrollable cruelty emerges when he grabs Quentin and threatens to beat her. Finally, Jason finds pleasure in watching others suffer, especially if he is the perpetrator. Even though he knows Luster would love to go to the show and he has two tickets, Jason burns the tickets without any emotion.

Returning to the question I stated earlier, Mrs. Compson probably finds herself in Jason. The similarities between mother and son bring them together. Both characters are self-absorbed; they selfishly wallow in their insecurities and act as victims. Mrs. Compson nearly drowns in self-pity, complaining that she is ill and cannot rest because of Benji’s crying. She wails about being burdened with horrible children, disgracing the Bascomb name. At times, I wonder: does she want to be miserable all the time? Is she not setting herself up for disappointment and despair? The same question can be applied to Jason. He is completely unhappy working at a boring farm-supply store. Yet, he refuses to find a new job. He steals from his family and lies to his mother about it. Instead of looking for a new job or acting as a positive mentor for Miss Quentin, Jason chooses to have others pity him for taking on the burden and the remaining baggage his father and siblings have left him. He pities himself and somehow feels that it will justify the horrors of his family: a brother who commits suicide, a divorced sister with an illegitimate child, an alcoholic dead father, an idiotic brother, and a crazy mother who has no one left but him. Mrs. Compson and Jason both lack motivation and because they have not lead successful lives, they resort to self-pity to gain self-worth. In the end, I have no sympathy for either character because I am too annoyed and disgusted with their lack of ambition. (565)