The Redeeming Timelessness of Love v/s The Ravaging Transience of Time: A Psychoanalysis of Marquez’s Love in the Time of Cholera

Mercy Varshney

doi:10.22161/ijels.v2.n3.10

Abstract

Using psychoanalytic theory as an analytical framework, this paper examines the relationship between the apparent timeless nature of love and the unavoidable passing of time in Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Love in the Time of Cholera. The protagonists of the book, Fermina Daza and Florentino Ariza, represent opposing views on time and love, portraying it as a haven from the perils of death as well as an enduring obsession. The study explores how memory, fancy, and desire function as defences against the temporality and degradation inherent in human life through Marquez's nuanced depiction of Florentino's lifelong obsession and idealization of Fermina. The study explores how Florentino's love functions as a psychological construct that is impervious to time, even as his body and circumstances age, drawing on Freudian ideas of fixation and desire fulfilment. Additionally, the river excursion at the end of the novel is interpreted in this article as a metaphor for the cyclical conflict between life's inevitable path towards death and love's wish for eternity. In the end, Marquez's writing provides light on the paradox of love: although it cannot physically stop time, it gives people a sense of psychological transcendence that enables them to exist with the appearance of timelessness despite the transient essence of life.

References

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Published

17 Aug 2026

Issue

Vol-2, No-3, Jul - Sep 2026

Metric

51 │ 3 │ 77-89

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International