In Gabriel Garcí Márquez's novel Love in a Time of Cholera, Florentino Ariza is a passionate man who's love for Fermina Daza has him wait for over fifty years before he can pursue her properly. He has many affairs during his half a century wait for Fermina's husband to die, but he continues to obsess over her. The main theme of the novel is the power of Florentino's romantic love. The protagonist, Florentino Ariza, devotes his entire life to the pursuit of a woman he has only spoken to briefly and has never been alone with. He waits for fifty years for Fermina's husband to die so that he can finally have the woman of his dreams. His patience proves him to be the victor at the end of the novel, as he ends up with Fermina. However, the road to his love was filled with difficulties. Although there were many long-standing obstacles preventing Florentino's love for Fermina, such as Fermina's father forbidding her to see him, Fermina's marriage to Dr. Urbino, and Dr. Urbino's survival into old age, when Dr. Urbino finally dies, Florentino grabs the first opportunity he can to show to Fermina that his love was undying and long lasting. Garica Marquez uses these obstacles to represent the difficulties in finding true love. By overcoming these obstacles, Florentino proves that his love with Fermina is the purest form. Dr. Juvenal Urbino, however, also appears to hold love for Fermina. The different kinds of love that Florentino and Urbino have for the same woman reflect their characters and explain Garcia Marquez' views on the idea of True Love.
The novel centers around the three main characters, Florentino Ariza, Fermina Daza, and Dr. Juvenal Urbino. When Florentino was young, he first saw Fermina and fell in love with her, so much so that his love could was more like an obsession, controlling his behavior and actions. He even wrote a letter to Fermina composed entirely of compliments to her that was over 70 pages long until his mother told him to shorten it.
