Love in the Time of Cholera Style

Love in the Time of Cholera Style

Narration

In Love in the Time of Cholera, although the narrative is in third person-the impersonal "he" or "she" performing the action-Garcia Marquez frequently withholds omniscient insight from his characters. In the novel the author suggests the unknowability of one's true feelings and the corresponding impossibility of summing up a relationship. Its six chapters progress smoothly along a linear path, punctuated by frequent asides and repeated flashbacks. The story is told by a single narrative voice, which recounts certain events in duplicate in order to represent the overlapping experiences of its multiple protagonists.

The letters of Florentino are a central narrative device defining the emotional ambivalence of the romantic experience. They are a way of balancing and connecting the kinds of truth and falsehood in romance. His early letters, along with Fermina's subsequent rejection of him, suggest the dangers of delusion. Yet in the long run the impulse of these...
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