3. Author: • In 1946, Marquez entered law school
at the National University of
Bogota. There he began reading
Kafka and publishing his first short
stories in leading liberal newspapers
• Marquez's first novel, Leaf Storm,
was published by a small Bogota
press in 1955. That year he also
began attending meetings of the
• Gabriel José García Márquez was Colombian Communist Party and
born on March 6, 1928, to Luisa traveling to Europe as a foreign
Santiaga Marquez Iguaran and correspondent. He also wrote his
Gabriel Eligio Garcia in Aracataca, second novel, In Evil Hour, and
Colombia. began work on a collection of short
stories called No One Writes to the
• The prized author and journalist is Colonel
known to many as simply Gabo.
With lyricism and marked wisdom,
Marquez has been recognized as one
of the most remarkable storytellers
of the 20th century.

4. • In 1958 he returned to
• The publication of One
Barranquilla to marry Mercedes
Barcha, his childhood Hundred Years of Solitude also
sweetheart. (He claimed that she predicted the success of other
was 13 when he first proposed.) Latin American novelists,
They lived together in Caracas marking the end of Western
from 1957 to 1959, while Marquez domination of the novel
continued to work as a journalist
and wrote fiction. • Gabriel Garcia Marquez has
• One Hundred Years of Solitude been suffering from lymphatic
is commonly accepted as cancer and is receiving
Marquez's greatest work, as well treatment. He remains active in
as a literary masterpiece. It Latin American politics.
became known as the turning-
point work between modernism
and postmodernism, and it
helped to revive the novel.

5. • Gabriel Garcia Marquez sets Love in the Time of Cholera in a
historical time of cholera. The novel spans the 19th century and
the early decades of the 20th, and medical history shows that in
the mid- to late-nineteenth century, over 200,000 people probably
died of cholera in the Caribbean. Many of Marquez's details are
reinforced by the history of these epidemics that ravaged the
Caribbean.
• The first epidemic hit Cuba in 1833, killing more than 22,000 in
seven months. The next epidemic killed between forty and fifty
thousand people in Jamaica, plus twenty thousand in Barbados,
all in the first half of the 1850s. For both islands, that was a loss of
about fifteen percent of their populations.

6. • On these islands, whites made up only a very small number of those
killed, both actually and proportionately. This was mainly because of
the disproportionate poverty of the non-white populations. As in the
novel, cholera hit the poor much harder than the wealthy. This is
mainly because of the lack of sanitary conditions. As Kenneth Kiple
points out, in the 19th-century Caribbean, human excrement was
disposed of casually if at all, and the poor were most likely to drink
from the contaminated water. As in the story, the rich had their own
private, much safer, cisterns and wells.
• At the time that Love in the Time of Cholera is set, cholera had a
fifty percent mortality rate. The symptoms included acute vomiting,
very acute diarrhea, muscle cramps, ruptured capillaries that made
skin appear blue, and lethargy. Death usually came quickly and
brutally. Sadly, those who underwent medical treatment were far
more likely to die. The treatment at the time was bloodletting and
purging by inducing diarrhea and vomiting, which is diametrically
opposed to the rehydration that is now used to cure the disease. That
the treatment only sped up the deterioration of the victim is
especially interesting considering the importance of doctors and
medicine in the novel.

8. Florentino is a man obsessed
by love his whole life,
obsessed specifically by his
love for Fermina Daza for
over fifty-one years. He is
Fermina's first love, but she
rejects him after a secret
engagement and
correspondence over her
teenage years, and he spends
his life waiting for her
husband to die--while
carrying on many love
affairs. He is a poet, the
president of the River
Company of the Caribbean,
and lover of all sentimental
literature about love.

10. Fermina's father,
Lorenzo came from San
Juan de la Cienaga soon
after the cholera
epidemic with his only
daughter and his sister.
He is a mule trader
with a reputation for
horse theft, and he
eventually is exposed
for his many immoral
and illegal business
dealings. His only goal
in life is to make his
daughter a lady.

11. Other charactes:
• America Vicuna
• The only lover Florentino still sleeps with regularly at the time of Juvenal Urbino's death, America is a fourteen-year-
old blood relative of Florentino, who is under his care while attending boarding school in his city. She falls deeply in
love with him and eventually commits suicide after realizing that he has stopped sleeping with her because he is in love
with Fermina.
• Aminta Deschamps
• Dr. Lacides Olivella's wife, Aminta plans and leads the silver anniversary party for her husband that is almost ruined
with rain, but which she salvages.
• Ausencia Santander
• Ausencia Santander is a grandmother whom Florentino sleeps with and who ruins his overly simple theories on sexual
capacity as based on appearance.
• Barbara Lynch
• The only daughter of a black Protestant minister, Barbara is a onetime patient of Dr. Urbino's for whom he falls head
over heels and whom he sees almost every day for four months. He is completely obsessed with her during that time and
promises her many things, and he only ends the affair when he finds out that Fermina has discovered it.
• Captain Diego Samaritano
• Diego Samaritano is the riverboat captain on the New Fidelity, the boat on which Florentino and Fermina spend the end
of their lives. He is especially fond of manatees.
• Digna Pardo
• An old servant of the Urbino's, Digna Pardo witnesses Juvenal Urbino's ignominious death.
• Dona Blanca de Urbino
• Juvenal Urbino's mother, Dona Blanca never recovers from her husband's death. She becomes permanently depressed
and cruel, and she makes the early years of Fermina's marriage very unhappy.
• Escolastica Daza
• Lorenzo's unmarried sister, she raises Fermina after the death of her mother, until Lorenzo sends her away and cuts off
his support as a punishment for her complicity in Fermina's relationship with Florentino. According to the narrator, her
greatest virtues are an instinct for life and a vocation for complicity. She eventually dies in a leprosarium; Fermina never
completely forgives her father for sending her away.

12. • Euclides
• One of the skilled diver boys who live by the water, Euclides agrees to treasure hunt with
Florentino, but instead cons him into believing there really is treasure where there is none. He
disappears permanently after Transito informs Florentino that he is being scammed.
• Sister Franca de la Luz
• The Superior of the Academy of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin, Sister Franca de la Luz
is responsible for expelling Fermina. She later approaches Fermina to persuade her to listen to
Dr. Urbino's suit for her hand.
• Gala Placidia
• Gala Placidia is Lorenzo Daza's servant, who comes back to them after their long absence and
helps Fermina reopen the house. She also is sent by Fermina to retrieve all of the letters and
tokens she sent Florentino after Fermina rejected him.
• Hildebranda Sanchez
• Fermina's cousin and lifelong friend, Hildebranda also suffers from forbidden love-for a married
man who is twenty years her senior. She never fully recovers, even after she has married
another man. She aids Fermina with her continued communications with Florentino on their
trip, and she teaches her a lot about freedom and fun.
• Jeremiah de Saint-Amour
• A good friend of Juvenal Urbino and a great chess player, Jeremiah de Saint-Amour is known to
all as an Antillean refugee, disabled war veteran, and photographer of children. Only after his
death, from his suicide note, does Urbino learn that he was actually a fugitive from Cayenne,
escaping a life sentence for an unspeakably horrible crime. He kills himself with cyanide at the
opening of the novel because he had decided long ago that he would not live into the indecency
of old age. He is survived by his long-term mistress, whom Urbino also did not know about
until Saint-Amour's death.

13. • Dr. Lacides Olivella
• Juvenal Urbino's beloved disciple, Dr. Olivella is a well-preserved man of fifty with a rather
effeminate air. He is celebrating his silver anniversary as a doctor on the day of Juvenal Urbino's
death.
• Don Leo XII Loayza
• Florentino's paternal uncle, Don Leo gets him started in the shipping business, and he provides
for Transito after Don Pius fails to--and then dies. His favorite pastime is singing at funerals,
and his life goal is to break glass with his voice. He is a self-described "poor man with money."
• Leona Cassiana
• The true woman of Florentino's life, although neither of them ever knows it, Leona is
responsible for pushing Florentino to the top of his company, and she follows him up but never
surpasses him. Florentino makes multiple attempts to sleep with her, but while she would have
accepted at one point, she is too late and sees him as a son. She remains a lifelong friend of
Florentino.
• Lisimaco Sanchez
• Fermina's maternal uncle, Lisimaco hosts Fermina and her father when he takes her away to
forget Florentino.
• Lotario Thugut
• A friend and coworker of Florentino at the telegraph office, Lotario Thugut is a German émigré.
He teaches Florentino how to play the violin. He also spends most of his time at a transient
hotel, which he eventually purchases.
• Lucrecia del Real
• An old friend of Fermina's who visits her every Thursday after Urbino's death, Lucrecia is
accused in the local gossip papers of having had an affair with Urbino, and although she did not,
she stops visiting Fermina, who takes this as an admission of guilt and thus the end of their
friendship.
• Dr. Marco Aurelio Urbino
• Juvenal's father, Marco Aurelio Urbino was a doctor who died during the great cholera
epidemic, during which he was a civic hero. After seeing the symptoms of cholera in himself, he
locks himself away in quarantine to die and writes a long goodbye letter to his family, refusing
to see any of them in person.

14. • Dr. Marco Aurelio Urbino Daza
• Juvenal Urbino's and Fermina Daza's only son, Marco Aurelio is a doctor in the tradition of his father and grandfather,
but an undistinguished one with no worthy accomplishments. He has produced no sons to carry on the family name. He
encourages the relationship between Florentino Ariza and his mother as a way to remain happy in her old age.
• Widow Nazaret
• The Widow Nazaret is the second woman whom Florentino sleeps with, and she is the first after Fermina with whom
he has a continuing relationship-although it is without fidelity or real love. They lead each other into a profligate way of
life.
• Ofelia Urbino
• Urbino's and Fermina's daughter, Ofelia has her paternal grandmother's prudish sensibilities, and she is disgusted by the
relationship that blossoms between her mother and Florentino Ariza.
• Olimpia Zuleta
• A pigeon seller's wife whom Florentino drives home in a storm, Olimpia participates in a slow courtship by pigeon
courrier with Florentino and eventually sleeps with him. He leaves painted markings on her, and her husband finds
them and murders her brutally for her infidelity.
• Don Pius V Loayza
• Florentino's father, who does not acknowledge his bastard son except to provide for him until his death. Don Pius was
also a bastard, but with his brothers he became very successful in the riverboat industry. His handwriting is exactly the
same as Florentino's, and he too was a man primarily interested in love who wrote love poems. He is elaborately
unfaithful to his wife throughout his life, but she only finds him out after his death.
• Rosalba
• The woman whom Florentino, somewhat arbitrarily, deduces is the one who took his virginity, Rosalba is a young
mother traveling on a riverboat with Florentino. She is his temporary cure for his unrequited love for Fermina.
• Sara Noriega
• A woman whom Florentino meets at the Poetic Festival, Sara Noriega was a poet when younger. She is moved to tears
at Florentino's disappointment at not winning the poetry contest. They sleep together for several years until Sara insults
Fermina, after which Florentino no longer can look at her in the same way.
• Transito Ariza
• Florentino's mother, Transito is a freed quadroon with an instinct for happiness frustrated by poverty. She is
hardworking and serious, and she makes a good living providing discreet loans to distinguished families who have fallen
in fortune. She is the only person Florentino tells about his love for Fermina, and she does all she can to help him, until
she becomes senile and loses her memory with age.
•

16. Florentino falls in
love with the young
and gorgeous
Fermina Daza at first
sight.
He succeeds in
getting her to agree
to marry him

17. She marries Dr. Urbino, a successful and
wildly popular.
Florentino resolves to wait until the doctor
dies so that he and Fermina can be together

18. Florentino has a series of love affairs, all the
while maintaining his devotion to Fermina.
“The Women”—622
His affairs start to have dark consequences,
however.

19. • Florentino’s grand gesture on the night
of Dr. Urbino’s death doesn’t go so
well. Fermina angrily casts him out of
the house.

20. • Even though Fermina is super-
angry with him, he clings to the
hope that she might forgive him.
• Florentino changes his approach
and writes Fermina a series of
letter in a more impersonal and
philosophical tone.

22. When the cruise
comes to an end, the
couple chooses to
continue sailing up
and down the river
“forever”, rather than
go back to their
former lives in the
city and the “horror
of real life”

23. Love, Loyalty, class(social status), Time,
Old age, Illness, Sex, Literature and writing
: birds, Cholera, The Yellow Flag of
Cholera
Magic realism