There are many themes that can be identified throughout the book, Love in the Time of Cholera. Love, as stated in the title, is one of the most important themes within the book. Love is channeled through all of the characters such as; Fermina Daza and Dr. Urbino, Florentino and all of his many affairs with different women, Dr. Urbino and his affair with Barbara Lynch, and most importantly the most powerful love throughout the book is the love between Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza.
Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza’s love started at a very young age, when they were just teenagers. He was so in love with Fermina at a young state that when he was within inches of her he couldn’t stand it. Marquez portrays Florentino’s love for Fermina when he says, “Florentino Ariza wandered like a sleepwalker until dawn, watching the fiesta through his tears, dazed by the hallucination that it was he and not a God who had been born that night” (Garcia Marquez 59). Fermina was also affected from being inches away from the boy she loved, Florentino, she merely passed out from the affect he had over here. In the book it says, “Dismayed by her own audacity, she seized Aunt Esclastica’s arm so she would not fall” (Garcia Marquez 59). This was would be the only night that they were that close to each other for the next fifty-one years.
For about three months Fermina and Florentino wrote each other every day until Fermina’s father made her move and leave Florentino. By then, he was so in love with Fermina that he was willing to die for her this is shown in the book when he says, “Shoot me… There is no greater glory than to die for love” (Garcia Marquez 82). Once Fermina is gone Florentino makes it his life’s purpose to be with his true love once again. In the novel it says, “Winning back Fermina Daza was the sole purpose of his life” (Garcia Marquez 173). They eventually start to communicate through letters when Fermina Daza starts to realize that she does not