Love in the Time of Cholera | Literary Qualities

Love in the Time of Cholera Literary Qualities

The novel opens with Dr. Juvenal Urbino attending the body of his friend, Jeremiah de Saint-Amour, and continues in present time until the doctor has his fateful encounter with the parrot almost fifty pages later.

This opening chapter is designed to give the reader a view of Dr. Urbino's accomplishments, his many travels, his churchgoing character, and the quiet passions (such as chess) he pursues in the stable but almost dull harmony of his marriage to Fermina Daza.

The middle chapters follow the lives of the three protagonists as the Urbinos embark on a fruitful marriage and Florentino Ariza rises through the ranks of the steamboat company. Flashbacks are used to delineate the relationships between the protagonists more sharply, but especially to reveal the ways in which Florentino's love for Fermina grows more confident and passionate as the years pass by. Flashbacks also reveal how the...
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