Love in the Time of Cholera

The impact of class differences on an individual’s experience of love is also a prominent theme of the novel. Fermina Daza and Florentino Ariza share a common experience in this regard; they both know what it means to come from a working-class upbringing and to discover that neither love nor money can bridge the divide between one class and another.

When Fermina becomes engaged to Dr. Juvenal Urbino, a man of wealth and reputation, she receives poison pen letters from prominent men and women in the city who see her as an affront to their class and an interloper. These letters continue through the early years of their marriage, reminding Fermina that their marriage may not be an ideal match. Though Fermina becomes one of the most prominent and fashionable women in the city, her ability to rise to the challenges posed by her upbringing falters when her father’s criminal dealings are exposed. The impact of this truth is devastating to Fermina; the news breaks her heart, because it exposes her for what she really is: a provincial girl with a dead mother and a criminal father.

Florentino, on the other hand, is forced by the limitations of his background to keep his love for Fermina a secret. Florentino’s parents were unmarried at his birth, and his father never claimed him as his son, though his father paid for Florentino’s care until his early death at 33. Fermina’s father does not approve of her attachment to Florentino because Florentino does not have the respect of his society that comes automatically to children born to married parents, and so the young couple must hide their love in letters and telegrams. Though Florentino eventually becomes the rich president of the riverboat company and a prominent man in his old age as, this change in his status does little in terms of access to social privileges. For example, Florentino doubts that he will be allowed in the city’s prominent Social Club, where Fermina’s son takes him to lunch.

When Florentino is around the highly regarded Dr. Urbino, Florentino feels neither “jealousy or rage—only great contempt for himself. He felt poor, ugly, inferior, and unworthy” (149). His social class makes him feel undeserving of Fermina’s love, despite his character and his wealth. Uncle Leo XII’s reflection on his own life mirrors Florentino’s experience: “I am a poor man with money, which is not the same thing [as a rich man]” (161). For both Fermina and Florentino, their experiences of class have little to do with money; class is about the status that comes from being born wealthy, rather than from accomplishment and hard work.