Love in the Time of Cholera | Analysis

Love in the Time of Cholera | Analysis Gabriel Garcia Marquezs Love in the Time of Cholera can be interpreted as a romance novel in which star-crossed lovers meet, are then torn apart, and half a century later fall into bed with one another re-igniting the flame that fate stole from them. However, the romance of Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza is not one of those stories. What may have initially appeared to be an innocent story about love may not be. M. Keith Booker has demonstrated that the novel provides warnings against gullibility in reading, and indeed, there are several incidents early in Love in the Time of Cholera that inform the reader that appearances can be deceiving. In the novel, love is a sickness; a virus that eats away the substance of a man. The falsehood of love that Florentino Ariza feels is a decaying illness destroying his physical and mental form; turning him into an apparition of welted camellias. The illness was injected into Florentino Ariza as he walked into the Dazas house. It was â€Å"half in ruins,† â€Å"with weeds in the flowerpots and a stone fountain with no water,† (54) standing in front. The house signified the sickness to come to Florentino. Flowers throughout the rest of the novel take the impression of the love between Florentino and Fermina, but to miss the setting of the first meeting of the two lovers is to misinterpret the entirety of the novel. The â€Å"weeds in the flowerpots† is the false love they share, the weeds are a valueless plants growing wild, those that grow on the cultivated ground and add injury to the desired crop; which in this case is the love between Florentino and Fermina. The fountain once again represents the emptiness of Florentino and Ferminas love as well as Florentino himself. From first seeing Fermina in the house on Florentino â€Å"began his secret life as a solitary hunter† in which he sat underneat h â€Å"the shade of the almond trees.†(56, 56) The scent almonds is the scent â€Å"of the fate of unrequited love,† (2) the scent that is associated with Jeremiah de Saint Amours death, and the scent of Fermina Daza. The suicide of Jeremiah de Saint Amour sets up the foreshadowing of Florentinos love and what it will ultimately do to him. It is no wonder that the scent of â€Å"bitter almonds† (2) is compared to that of cyanide, as well as the smell of Fermina. The intoxicating aroma of Fermina fills Florentinos heart with crystals ultimately killing him there in the park as he endows her with â€Å"improbable virtues and imaginary sentiments.† (56) In other words, he idealizes her. It is this unrealistic conception of Fermina that leads to a half-century of waiting, watching and stalking, infected by the weeds of love. Marquez wrote: â€Å"When he began to wait for the answer to his first letter, his anguish was complicated by diarrhea and green vomit, be 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† â€Å"..he had the weak pulse, hoarse breathing, and pale perspiration of a dying man†Ã¢â‚¬ He prescribed infusions of linden blossoms to calm the nerves and suggested a change of air so he could find consolation in distance, but Florentino Ariza longed for just the opposite: to enjoy his martyrdom.† (61, 62, 62) Florentino Ariza literally takes on the sickness of love, as if Fermina had infected him with a bacterial disease known as Cholera. Marquez purposely parallels the sickness of cholera and Florentinos love sickness to exploit the falseness of the love felt by Florentino. The fact that Florentino enjoys his suffering points out the reality of his feelings for Fermina, that he does love her; that he is in love with the suffering caused by the idea of loving her. Fermina is an independent, headstrong person who is sophisticated and capable; Fermina prides herself on her unfaltering, haughty composure. Marquez depicts her as a level headed woman whose ideals are realistic, therefore it is of no concern when she writes to Florentino saying â€Å"When I saw you, I realized that what is between us is nothing more than an illusion.†(102). although, critic ___________ believes that Fermina is â€Å"impulsive† based off her sudden realization, in actuality she is only grown. The time apart from Florentino has taught her that the love between them was truly an illusion that was built up in their minds. She came to the conclusion that the love was nothing more than a childhood crush. However, Florentino did not have the option to grow from Fermina because the separation was nothing new to him. The Fermina Daza he loved was not a physical woman but a sickness running through his veins, she was a phantom of â€Å"improbable virtues and imaginary sentiments.† (56) Fermina the phantom was always with Florentino, she was in his mind and no amount of time could take that away from him. From the moment he gave his letter to Fermina he locked himself into a prison counting the days until he could be free from his self made prison. The virus of Fermina did not break even after the â€Å"fifty-one years and nine months and four days† (103) of waiting, for the prison he built was solely a monument to Fermina. He based the entirety of his life on her and achieving her as if she was a â€Å"golden† prize to win. When Florentino sees her for the first time from her honeymoon, he re-iterates his vow for her. Marquez writes: â€Å"The day that Florentino Ariza saw Fermina Daza in the atrium of the Cathedral, in the sixth month of her pregnancy and in full command of her new condition as a woman of the world, he made a fierce decision to win fame and fortune in order to deserve her.†(165) Florentino based the rest of his life on solely reaching Fermina, not even to marry her as Marquez makes sure not to mention but to â€Å"deserve her† once again suggesting that the love he felt was one of falsehood. Any chance of Florentino of living his life for him in the chance of happiness is shattered here. Any substance that could be squeezed from him is abolished once again in seeing Fermina from a distance â€Å"six months pregnant,† the fact that he saw her pregnant from a distance reinforces that Florentino does not perceive of Fermina as an actually person but rather that woman in his mind. His â€Å"fierce decision† was beyond the thought of a rational man, for Fermina was married and was pregnant to represent that marriage. However, this point in Florentinos life is when he will stop at nothing to reach his dream of Fermina. He devotes his life to the river company until the day he can reach Fermina. Florentino becomes a man in the background to walk the dark city nights; he lives his adult life in the shadows of women. Feeling that sex â€Å"eases the pain of Fermina Daza† (). (( He puts himself in to affairs with other woman whether they are married or not. The narrator only describes a very small fraction of his six hundred and twenty-two long-term affairs, but of the ones he does relate, several offer a picture of a man less than deserving of Ferminas — or any womans — love. One of Florentinos lovers, Olimpia Zuleta, is murdered by her husband when she inadvertently shows him the possessive inscription that Florentino painted on her belly. It is also revealed late in the novel that Florentino is a rapist who, after impregnating a maid behind his house, bribes her to put the blame on her innocent sweetheart. Perhaps most condemning is Florentinos seduction of Amà ©rica Vicuà ±ia, his fourteen-year-old blood relative who is entrusted to him while she att ends secondary school. What is most disturbing in his relationship with this girl is the manipulation he uses to create the illusion of acquiescence. When he meets her, she is still a little girl with the scrapes of elementary school on her knees, but Florentino spends a year cultivating her with ice cream and childish afternoons, until finally winning her confidence and affection. These are love affairs not one night stands, Florentino had feelings for these women (some of them anyway), this love life points out the falsehood of Florentinos love for Fermina. He manipulates woman, all of them. From the time he receives Ferminas letter of insults, Florentino begins to devise a new strategy — a new method of seduction.() He plans everything down to the last detail, as if it were the final battle.() He departs from his usual imitative writing style and composes an extensive meditation on life which he disguises in the patriarchal style of an old mans memories. The letters help Fermina find new reasons to go on living, but Florentinos cunning plans complicate what she interprets as heartfelt emotions. He is also dishonest with her in person; when she asks him why he never competed in the Poetic Festivals, he lies to her () and says that he wrote only for her.() It is true that part of his intention is to give Fermina the courage to discard the prejudices() of society, and to think of love as a state of grace,() but his contemptible past makes it impossible to differentiate his good motives from his selfish, destructive ones.)) Marquez expels Florentino and Ferminas false love during the final pages of the book. He depicts a forsaken country on the river were the elderly couple float down. â€Å"The river became muddy and narrow[†¦] flatlands stripped of entire forests that had been devoured by the boilers of the riverboats [†¦] there were no more wars or epidemics, but the swollen bodies still floated by.†(336) Florentinos relationship with Fermina was not as full but rather a narrow and muddy. The life he led with the sole purpose of being with Fermina and the illusion that followed striped the forest of his life bare leaving nothing but â€Å"flatlands.†(336) The monomaniac idealism of Florentino leads him to strip away everything in his life other than the â€Å"muddy and narrow† (336) river that is his relationship with Fermina. Even though he defeats all the â€Å"wars† and â€Å"epidemics† (336) in order to reach Fermina there are still corpses that float by, the corpses of falsehood and past lovers. The love between them is as narrow as the river. Florentino is as dead and bare as the country side. The ultimate contradiction comes in the very last words of Florentino in which he tells the captain to sail the â€Å"New Fidelity† (343) to sail â€Å"forever.†(348) The impossibility of that statement at first glance seems as the perfect way to end a romantic novel. However, this is not Marquez intention. The wood that is needed to fuel the ship has been depleted to none, due to Florentinos mismanaging of the river company because his mind only grasped the falsehood of Ferminas love. Eventually the elderly couple will have to come to realize the impossibility of their love and come to the truth that â€Å"Its dead.†(340) Florentino will have to come to the truth that Fermina has poisoned his mind and body and that she is and was only an illusion in his mind.

The Age of Social Influence

We know that the once linear and transaction-centric purchase funnel is now multi-directional, random and heavily influenced by opinion and information gathered by consumers. And we know that because of social media and technology, consumers can now enter the purchase cycle at various points, and spontaneously influence others as they travel along the path the purchase. But do we really understand how marketers can unlock the real value of all this? Do we know how social media works with other more established media?And do we know how to harness the power of social media for real commercial gain? In order to find aanswers to some of these crucial questions, Initiative set out to explore the individual and combined strength of TV, social and mobile, and how consumer interaction with each has altered the path to purchase. Specifically, we wanted to investigate: †¢ Howdoweproducegreatersynergybetweenoursiloed media,socialandmobilebudgetsandtacticsthatresultina greaterreturnoninvest ment? †¢ Whataretheimpactofsocial,TVandmobileonshopper decision-making? †¢ Whatroledoesconsumerinfluenceplayalongthepathto purchase?However, our study found that while the integration of social, TV and mobile has indeed altered the way consumers make decisions about brands, it is not because of their ability to simply multiply brand messages. Increasingly, consumers are becoming the driving force powering what, when and where brand interactions occur. Based upon our findings, Initiative believes that by leveraging the consumer’s natural inclination to engage with media across multiple screens and social media, we can create a consumer-powered media synergy effect that is both non-linear and emotional – driving deeper engagement and trust.

The Correlation of Drug and Alcohol Abuse - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 2 Words: 526 Downloads: 10 Date added: 2019/03/22 Category Health Essay Level High school Tags: Drug Abuse Essay Did you like this example? Addiction does not have any specific targets and it is surreal to think that anyone from any age, race, background, gender, and ethnicity can become affected with substance abuse from harmful drugs and alcohol. This of course includes pregnant women. Normally, a woman goes through a very joyful and exciting stage when she finds out she is pregnant. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "The Correlation of Drug and Alcohol Abuse" essay for you Create order She immediately shuts her unhealthy habits out of her life in order to protect her little one. However, this is not the case for women who become pregnant while suffering from alcohol/drug addiction. Pregnant women who suffers from drug addiction are very likely to have a miscarriage or pass on a birth defect on to their baby. This study examines the effects of substance abuse to pregnant women and the after effects of their addiction onto their children. According to Debra Apollo from her article Pregnancy and Drug Use, in Adolescent Health Wellness, from 2008 to 2009, 4.5 percent of pregnant girls and women from the age of fifteen to forty-four years and 7.1% of women age eighteen to twenty-five years admitted that they have used drugs in the past month. The most common drugs that were used during pregnancy are cocaine, benzodiazepines, and heroin. Most of these women used drugs during their first trimester and the usage decreased as their pregnancy went further. The causes of drug addiction may come from lots of different factors. One explanation can be from the familys history and it may carry a genetic risk that may or may not be passed on to. However, a person with no family history of substance abuse can also become addicted as they could be using large amounts of substances repetitively that it comes to the point where they would not be able to survive without it. A major factor as to why a baby becomes affected in the first place is because women hesitate to find help or stop using drugs during pregnancy and it is also proven that pregnant women who suffer from drug abuse are more likely to have poor diet and suffer from stress and violence. Different substances causes different effects on both the mother and the baby. There are many things that can injure the fetus from smoking to drinking. For example, smoking can cause the baby to be underweight and malnourished as to drinking, the baby can be born with fetal alcohol syndrome. Although both effects are different from each other, both put the babys life in a great deal of danger. The causes of other substances will also be different such as cocaine, methamphetamine, marijuana, and opiates. Smoking can also cause complications with the mother as well. This includes pelvic pain, problems with the mothers placenta that consist of detachment and tearings of the placenta. Going back to the causes of drinking, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, also known FAS puts the baby at risk because when a mother drinks, the alcohol goes through the placenta and straight to the fetus. It is then gets broken down by the fetus but since the fetus is very small, the alcohol remains in its blood longer which causes many side effects to the fetus.

The Green River Killer Gary Ridgway

Gary Ridgway, known as the Green River Killer, went on a 20-year killing spree, making him one of the most prolific serial killers in U.S. history. He was finally caught and convicted based largely on DNA evidence. Childhood Years Born Feb. 18, 1949, in Salt Lake City, Utah, Ridgway was the middle son of Mary Rita Steinman and Thomas Newton Ridgway. From an early age, Ridgway was sexually attracted to his domineering mother. When he was 11, the family moved from Utah to Washington State. Ridgway was a poor student, with a below average I.Q. of 82 and dyslexia. Most of his teenage years were unremarkable until age 16 when he led a 6-year-old boy into the woods and stabbed him. The boy survived and said Ridgway walked away laughing. First Wife In 1969, when Ridgway was 20 and just out of high school, he joined the Navy rather than be drafted. He married his first steady girlfriend, Claudia Barrows, before going to Vietnam. Ridgway had an insatiable sex drive and spent a lot of time with prostitutes during his military service. He contracted gonorrhea and, although it angered him, he didnt stop having unprotected sex with prostitutes. Claudia began dating while Ridgway was in Vietnam and in less than a year the marriage ended. Second Wife In 1973 Marcia Winslow and Ridgway married and had a son. During the marriage, Ridgway became a religious fanatic, proselytizing door-to-door, reading the Bible aloud at work and home, and insisting that Marcia follow the church pastors strict preaching. Ridgway also insisted that Marcia have sex outdoors and in inappropriate places and demanded sex several times a day. He continued to hire prostitutes throughout their marriage. Marcia, who had a serious weight problem most of her life, decided to have gastric bypass surgery in the late 1970s. She quickly lost weight and for the first time in her life, men found her attractive, making Ridgway jealous and insecure. The couple began fighting. Marcia struggled to accept Ridgways relationship with his mother, who controlled their spending and made decisions on their purchases, including buying Ridgways clothing. She also accused Marcia of not properly taking care of their son, which Marcia resented. Since Ridgway wouldnt defend her, Marcia was left on her own to compete with her mother-in-law. Seven years into the marriage the couple divorced. Later Marcia claimed that Ridgway placed her in a chokehold during one of their fights. Third Wife Ridgway met his third wife, Judith Mawson, in 1985 at Parents Without Partners. Judith found Ridgway to be gentle, responsible, and structured. She appreciated that he had worked as a truck painter for 15 years. Before moving in together, Ridgway updated the house. Unlike Marcia, Judith praised her mother-in-law for helping Ridgway handle challenging tasks for him, such as his checking account and major purchases. Eventually, Judith took over those responsibilities. The Green River Killer In July 1982, the first body had been found floating in the Green River in King County, Washington. The victim, Wendy Lee Coffield, was a troubled teen who had experienced few joys in life before she was strangled with her panties and tossed into the river. With sparse evidence, her murder remained unsolved. The assailant was dubbed the Green River Killer. King County police couldnt know that Coffield would be the beginning of a killing spree lasting for years, the majority of the murders occurring from 1982 through 1984. Most victims were prostitutes or young runaways who worked or hitchhiked along an area of Highway 99 full of topless bars and cheap hotels. For the Green River Killer, it was a great hunting ground. Reports of women and young girls disappearing continued. Discovering skeletal remains in woods along the river and around Sea-Tac Airport was becoming regular. The victims ranged in age from 12 to 31. Most were left nude; some had been sexually abused. The Green River Task Force was formed to investigate the murders, and the suspect list grew. DNA and sophisticated computer systems werent around during the early 1980s, so the task force relied on old-fashioned police work to piece together a profile. Serial Killer Consultant: Ted Bundy In October 1983 Ted Bundy, who was on death row as a convicted serial killer, offered to help the task force. The lead detectives met with Bundy, who provided insight into a serial killers mind. Bundy said that the killer likely knew some of his victims and that more victims were probably buried in the areas where victims had been found. Bundy put significance on those areas, suggesting that each was close to the killers home. Although detectives found Bundys information interesting, it didnt help find the killer. The Suspect List In 1987 the task force leadership changed hands, as did the direction of the investigation. Instead of trying to prove who the serial killer was, the group worked on eliminating suspects, moving those remaining to the A list. Ridgway made the original list because of two encounters he had with police. In 1980 he was accused of choking a prostitute while having sex with her in his truck near Sea-Tac, an area where some victims had been discarded. Ridgway admitted to attempting to choke her  but said it was in self-defense because the prostitute bit him while performing oral sex. The matter was dropped. In 1982 Ridgway was questioned after he was caught in his truck with a prostitute. The prostitute later was identified as Keli McGinness, one of the victims. Ridgway was questioned in 1983 after the boyfriend of a missing prostitute identified Ridgways truck as the last truck his girlfriend had gotten into before she vanished. In 1984 Ridgway was arrested for trying to solicit an undercover policewoman posing as a prostitute. He agreed to take a polygraph test and passed. This and his relationship with Mawson seemed to slow Ridgways murderous rage. Although past victims continued to be discovered, fewer women were reported missing. The A List Ridgway moved up to the A list and was placed under surveillance. Investigators scrutinized his work record and determined that he wasnt at work on many of the days victims had been reported missing. Also, prostitutes along the strip gave police a description of a man theyd seen cruising the area, which matched Ridgway. This was also the road Ridgway took to and from work. On April 8, 1987, the police searched Ridgways house, which was packed with objects he and Mawson had collected dumpster diving, attending swap meets, and searching sites where Green River victims had been found. Salvaging other peoples throwaways was their favorite pastime. Ridgway was taken into custody, and he allowed police to take hair and saliva samples before releasing him for lack of evidence. Believing he had once again fooled the task force, Ridgway went back on the prowl. Green River Killer Is Arrested By 2001 the task force comprised younger detectives familiar with computers and knowledgeable about DNA research, which had advanced considerably. DNA evidence carefully preserved by the past task force proved invaluable in capturing the Green River Killer. On Nov. 30, 2001, Ridgway was arrested for the 20-year-old murders of Marcia Chapman, Opal Mills, Cynthia Hinds, and Carol Ann Christensen. The evidence was DNA matches from each victim to Gary Ridgway. Also, paint samples matched with paint used where Ridgway worked. Three additional victims were added to the indictment. The lead detective, interviewing Ridgways ex-wives and old girlfriends, discovered he had taken one girlfriend for picnics and outdoor sex in areas where he had clustered bodies. Confession and Plea Bargain In a plea bargain to avoid execution, Ridgway agreed to cooperate with the investigation into the remaining Green River murders. For months Ridgway disclosed details of each murder he had committed. He took investigators to locations where he had left bodies and disclosed how he killed each one. Ridgways preferred method of murder was strangulation. He started with a choke hold and later used a ruler to twist fabric around the victims necks. Sometimes he killed them inside his house, other times in the woods. In one confession that revealed Ridgways darkest side, he said he used a picture of his son to gain his victims trust. He also admitted to killing one of his victims while his young son waited in the truck. When asked if he would have killed his son had the son realized what he was doing, he said yes. He confessed once to killing 61 women and another time 71 women. At the conclusion of the interviews, Ridgway could recall only 48 murders, all of which he said occurred in King County. On Nov. 2, 2003, Ridgway pleaded guilty to 48 charges of aggravated first-degree murder. He also confessed to having sex with six of the bodies after he had killed them and to moving body parts to Oregon to throw off the investigation. On Dec. 18, 2003, Gary Ridgway was sentenced to 480 years without parole. As of July 2018, he was in the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla.