Love Engendered

I find it amusing that humans use the flower as a symbol of love. What is so funny about the innocent flower? Exactly that: its innocence! The flower is a seductive lure to all pollinating creatures. Flowers are the sexual organs of plants. Even the Roman goddess Flora, the deity of the vine, fruit, flowers, and grain, symbolized fertility—needless to say, festivals held in her honor were pretty wild. The flower’s sole purpose is to enclose the plant sperm in an attractive casing in the hopes that an animal will be attracted to it and therefore spread its germ to awaiting, neighboring plants—it’s quite ingenious when one thinks about it. The fact that we humans proclaim and demonstrate our love through the giving of sexual organs is hilarious. It would be strange if we used the reproductive organs of any other organism. Let’s say, a fallopian tube? The motif of flowers is used throughout Love in the Time of Cholera. Delving more deeply into the motif, I began to wonder what the different flowers Florentino associated with Fermina Daza meant to him and why.

Flowers clearly symbolize Florentino’s intoxication with Fermina. Three flowers in particular remind him of his ideal love: the gardenia, the camellia, and the rose. Culturally the gardenia represents secret love, joy, and is considered lucky. The camellia represents admiration, perfection and loveliness. The rose symbolizes passion and love (as well as the Virgin Mary) when red; virginity and purity when white. It therefore isn’t too shocking when one realizes that an anagram of rose is eros, the god of love.

Fermina’s floral scent lingers with Florentino even half a century later. His title for her, the crowned goddess, was created when he saw her wearing a crown of flowers on her head. He sends her a white camellia, “a flower of promise”, when he requests her hand in marriage. He consumes flowers to the point of sickness when thinking and waiting for Fermina. He even inscribes poetry on flower petals—an extremely delicate and involved process. Florentino worships Fermina and fabricates a love so ideal that it cannot be real. Despite Florentino’s desperate attempts, the seeds of their love germinate, but they are not ready to blossom—not for another fifty years.

To Florentino, the young Fermina Daza was like a delicate white camellia: beautiful and innocent. However, Fermina was more like a rose: a beauty indeed, but one that came with many thorns. Her independence, level-headedness, and realism directly contrasted Florentino’s dependence, aloofness, and romanticism. Florentino believed that he understood Fermina’s nature, but he was far from right. Later in life, after his 622 plus encounters with women, he believes that he can read, manipulate, and please the female gender. While the latter might be right, Florentino still cannot understand the intricate workings of the female mind and heart.

I still believe that Florentino's love for Fermina is pure and constant. His tiny falterings are natural and human. But his ability to seek substitute, earthly lovers to control the consuming affects of his love for Fermina make him strong. He knows that he must be patient; he knows he must be mentally faithful; and he knows that love will conquer all. I wonder if Florentino had never been raped by the mysterious woman on the boat, that he would have remained physically loyal to Fermina as well. However, the more important question is if his sexual encounters really relieved him of his overpowering love for Fermina. Freud's theories on repression state that strong emotions need to be expressed through methods that are not harmful, are theraputic, and socially acceptable. Our subconscience houses our deepest desires and emotions--feelings that one finds hard to consciously think about--and Freud believed these powerful feelings needed some form of expression. Florentino finds many outlets for his love for Fermina. He composes love letters for uninspired or unable lovers. He writes poetry and delves into romance novels. But his mental and emotional love is so powerful that he physically needs an outlet. He knows he must wait for Fermina--and so he does, all the while expressing his mental love for Fermina through the physical love of other women. This is not a conventional story of love. Florentino demonstrates that love comes in many forms.

Marquez makes no statement on what love should be or what kind of love is best. He simply narrates what love is and can be.
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Fun Fact: The parrot in many Impressionist paintings symbolized the character of the female subject: that of a prostitute. Gustave Courbet’s Woman with a Parrot was clearly of a nightly escort--as well as Manet’s.