Love in the Time of Cholera: Blog 1

One of the novel’s most prominent and powerful themes is, not surprisingly, love. However, love is not portrayed as a wonderful, simplistic, union of two people who share each other’s passions without question. In "Love in the Time of Cholera", love is portrayed as a plague comparable to cholera that can devastate your life. We can see from Florentino Ariza that love is sometimes single sided and agonizing. He becomes so lovesick that he must endure not only emotional hardships, but also physical pains similar to those of cholera as he woos over his beloved Fermina Daza. Marquez’s novel suggests that lovesickness is not only a state of mind, but is a literal illness that can consume your entire life.

As chapter two progresses, we can see that Florentino is literally plagued by love. Every second of his life he can only think of Fermina. Although he only catches glimpses of her walking to and from school, for two weeks straight he thinks of nothing else but her. He even spends his time alone writing pages and pages of letters to her in hopes that one day he will find the courage to give them to her. Florentino goes to the extent of memorizing entire books of love poems only to find better ways of expressing his unconditional devotion to his secret love. His obsession with Fermina becomes so unbearable that he must unleash the weight of his secret to his mother. Since it is Florentino’s first experience with what he believes is true love, he turns to the only person that can guide him in the right direction.

When Florentino finally gives Fermina the letter confessing his love, he is instantly sick with worry. As soon as Florentino, "began to wait for the answer to his first letter, his anguish was complicated by diarrhea and green vomit, he became disoriented and suffered from sudden fainting spells and his mother was terrified because his condition did not resemble the turmoil of love so much as the devastation of cholera." (61) His lovesickness was so much like cholera that his godfather, a homeopath, mistakes that Florentino was infected with the illness. Yet, they finally conclude, "the symptoms of love were the same as those of cholera." (62) Florentino again complicates his emotional pain with physical agony when he vomits after eating roses and drinking perfume hoping to "taste" Fermina’s forbidden scent. He is so delirious over her letters that he, "spent the rest of the afternoon eating roses and reading the note letter by letter, over and over again (68)." Florentino even compromises his job as he works absent mindedly at the telegraph office and makes costly errors for the company. Florentino goes so far as to risk his life only so he can play love songs on his violin to Fermina during the Civil War. He is eventually captured by government troops, is accused of being a spy, and barley escapes execution after serving jail time for his senseless acts of love. As their relationship, solely through letters, progresses Florentino proposes to his love. Of course, Fermina’s father is enraged that a lower class boy would ruin all that he has provided for his daughter. He can only hope that if he takes her away for many years, she will forget about Florentino completely. Although they keep in contact secretly and she maintains her fidelity for years, Fermina knows she never truly loved him as soon as they are reunited in the market. All she can think to say to Florentino is "No, please, forget it (102)." After all of those years of devotion and non-stop love sickness, Florentino is finally faced with the fact that his love is one-sided. Fermina tell him in a simple letter that, "Today when I saw you, I realized that what is between us is nothing more than an illusion (102)."

Contrary to many other novels focused on love, "Love in the Time of Cholera" shows us that love is not always the wonderful experience that everyone should look forward to experiencing. More often that not, love can be one-sided and can consume your entire life as you brood over lost love. As we learned from the first chapter, even after fifty years of rejection, Florentino is still convinced of his everlasting love for her. Florentino’s lovesickness is not only an emotional and physical pain, but also a psychological illness that leads him to compulsively obsess over Fermina. (744)

The Sound and the Fury Blog 2

The Jason section in The Sound and the Fury is entirely different from any of the previous sections we have read. Unlike the Benjy and Quentin sections, Jason’s account is very structured and chronological. His recollection of past events is no where near as vivid and as emotional as the previous sections. Jason’s tone is quite harsh and cruel. He is much more vulgar, nasty, hurried, power-hungry, and consumed with his ego than his brothers are. While Benjy and Quentin both seem to reminisce in the past and their mistakes, Jason’s main interests lie in the present and controlling those around him. He is more concerned with external events than he is with his emotions and his inner world. Jason is a clear contrast to his brothers in which his motives are very black and white.

No matter what character Jason interacts with, he always attempts to gain control over them. He constantly tries to twist circumstances in his favor, usually at the expense of those around him. Jason believes that he is more clever than everyone else is and that he can control any one if he wants to by manipulating them. One of the main ways he tries to gain control over those around him is with money. Since he is the head of the family after his father and brother died, he believes that he is now financially responsible for the Compsons. He feels that since he brings in the money to support the family, he should be able to dictate how his family, in particular his niece, act. Jason tries to control the women in his life by relying on his finances. Although he swindles the money from his sister’s child support checks, Jason believes that he should be in control of Quentin’s actions since he pays for her things with his sister’s money. When Quentin does not have her books he asks her, "I know you haven’t got any books: I just want to ask you what you did with them, if it’s any of my business. I’m just the one that paid $11.65 for them last September." Although he tries to gain control over her with money, she does not listen to him nor respect him. She replies to his treats by saying, "I’d rather be in hell than anywhere where you are." Another woman Jason tries to control is his prostitute girlfriend Lorranine. The only way that he knows how to have a relationship with a woman is by controlling her with money. Jason knows that she is dependent on him and "misses" him because "last time I gave her forty dollars". Although it is a prostitute, he feels as if she is truly dependent on him. Yet without his money, Lorranine would not even pay attention to him. Jason also manipulates Caddy by requiring that Quentin’s child support checks go through him. For many years, he believes that he has tricked both his mother and sister by stealing the money, but eventually Caddy lets him know that he has not tricked her. She tells him that, "I’ve had no answer to the last two letters I wrote her, though the check in the second one was cashed with the other check. I know you are opening my letters to her. I know that as well as if I were looking at you." Once again, Jason fails at controlling the women in his life or even tricking them. The only woman that he has been able to control is his mother, only because she believes that he is her perfect son. When Jason tries to sell a ticket to Luster, Jason shows how cruel he truly is. Jason knows that his servant cannot afford the five cent ticket, yet he would rather burn it in front of him than give it too him. Jason claims that he "Needs the cash" although he has a safe box full of bills in his room. Jason again wants to flaunt his self-perceived power over everyone else because of his money. In the end, no one cares about his small amount of cash and his perception that he has any power over people is false.

Although Jason is a crafty and clever character, he never uses his talents to swindle people rather than to gain their respect honestly. Faulkner’s different use of style and tone in each characters section of the novel is based upon each characters different personality in the novel. If Jason learned to not manipulate and trick those around him, people might start to truly listen to him and he would finally have some real control over his peers. By concentrating on his small sum of money and believing that it is everything in his life, Jason never develops any higher goals or aspirations for himself. Jason appears to be a motivated character with clever ideas, driven by his strong ego. Jason could be a strong leader if he could put his traits to good use instead of wasting them on petty tricks; he could finally win some real control over those around him.(824)