In the following essay, Lilburn, a teaching assistant at the University of Western Ontario, examines how García Marquez uses the conventions of sentimental romance stories to explore deeper themes and even satirize popular conceptions of love.
It is tempting to read Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Love in the Time of Cholera as a romantic and sentimental story in which love prevails over time and death, and patience and devotion are rewarded with a happy ending. The temptation derives from Garcia Marquez's misleading narrative that invites, or rather deceivingly manipulates readers into believing that Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza's belated union represents a victory over individual and societal adversities, prejudices and conventions. However, disguised beneath the surface of the melodramatic plot lies a critical, sometimes satiric examination of many of the elements that appear to contribute to.....
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