The Most Admirable and The Most Despicable Gabriel Garcia Marquez Characters
- He purposely declared hislove for Fermina on the night of the funeral of her husband. Isn’t that madness? Isn’t that the height of insensitivity? That’s a madman’s obsession for fifty-one years, nine months and four days.
- On the night of Fermina’s husband’s death, Florentino’s 622nd affair was with a fourteen-year old blood relative who was entrusted to him as her guardian. He was over 70 years old. Need I say more?
I felt that the great author had to create a justification for Fermina to entertain Florentino at the end of the novel. I think it was unnecessary to tarnish Urbino’s (the dead husband) image to Fermina unless it was to make the softening of Fermina’s character and the love story more credible. A newspaper published the affair of Urbino with his best friend complete with the details of the relationship. Not a line of it was true but it wasn’t corrected to Fermina.
Florentino Ariza was the one who cut out and sent the news item to Fermina. I think I am being carried away by my own biases. I feel so strongly about Florentino Ariza’s charater. It doesn’t help that he isn’t a handsome man.
On a positive note, my most admirable female character is Ursula Iguaran, who happens to be another Gabriel Garcia Mazrquez creation. She is the matriarch in One Hundred Years of Solitude. Not much is written about her in the novel. In fact, she is the silent character who is always present but occasionally described and discussed. In my case, I only realized at the end of the novel that her presence is the one who holds the family together.
The male character I love the most is Victor Hugo’s Jean Valjean. Is there another character more (okay, at least equally) pure-hearted than he is? I’ll find another time to write why I feel for this character amongst all the other literary characters I have read. Anyway, Florentina Ariza has drained my energy.
It must be years now since I read the book so the details now escape me, but I do remember thinking it wasn’t easy, but well worth the effort of reading it. I also remember it making me laugh in unexpected places. I wish I still had my copy.
I have never read this book but I think I will pick it up after reading your review.
hi A – yes, “Love in the time of cholera” was a good read. it was entertaining but i was just too affected by Ariza’s character
hi Gina – it would be interesting to know your thoughts, too after you read the novel.
i haven’t read Love in the Time of Cholera… but i read One Hundred Years of Solitude more than a decade ago and boy, i didn’t enjoy it until after the first 50 pages…
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hi betch – as of now “One Hundred Years of Solitude” remains to be the best contemporary novel for me:-)
I also did not like Florentina Ariza’s character. He committed many dispicable acts including the affair he had with his young niece. I can’t remember how old she was off the top of my head but I do remember she was very young.
I guess that is what I like about Gabriel Garcia Marquez, he does not always write his characters to be people we necessarily like or fall in love with. He does not stick to what is “politically correct” or polite in society. It is what makes his books interesting, and I like that.
the niece was 14 years old. despicable! i agree with your observation about gabril garcia marquez. in fact, in one of his interviews, he said something like the readers should not be trapped with their emotions in reading the novel, much more focusing on the character of Ariza. But at the end of the novel, I was really exhausted with Ariza. He still remains to be the least likable (that’s putting it mildly) male character I’ve ever met in fiction.
I’m not excusing the character but it isn’t clear that he raped the maid, just that he bought her silence over the pregnancy. I don’t think he raped her, unless the author has said otherwise. Regarding the niece’s age, that wasn’t the best but you must remember the time period the book is set in.
hi IDEA – thanks for visiting and commenting:-).
the maid was raped. this was how the author wrote about it:
“Less than ten years before, he had ASSAULTED one of the maids behind the main staircase in the house, dressed and standing as she was, and in less time than a Filipino rooster he had left her in a family way.”
… can the author be unclear with his use of the word “assaulted”?