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Empire Write Back

 

Housekeeping

• Exam II will be posted Thursday
• Journal Four

 

Agenda

Empire Write Back Housekeeping Agenda Gabriel Garcia Marquez Love in the Time of Cholera (LTC)  The Cast: Group work: defining love in LTC Love in Colombia, 1880-1930. Life in Colombia, 1880 - 1930. Discussion Question Cultural Collisions: Chinese Immigrants in Colombia Discussion Questions: Death in Colombia, 1880 - 1930. Key facts Discussion Question: Filming Love in the Time of Cholera The Cast: The Empire Writes Back: Conrad and Marquez Discussion Questions: Responding to Colonialism through Art

 

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Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Known affectionately as "Gabo," Marquez's work is often considered the beginning of the Latin American literary boom. He merges realism and surrealism, creating a new sort of mythology in his fiction.

 

In 1961, Marquez resettled his family in New York and then in Mexico City. From there, he became a Nobel Prize Winning Latin American author (100 Years of Solitude - 1967/1982).

 

Love in the Time of Cholera (LTC) 

 

Summary: This is a novel about love and death at the end of the nineteenth century in Colombia; it is set in the time when slavery and colonialism are ending throughout Latin America. In Marquez's celebrated style of synchronicity, the themes of love and death merge together, each illuminating and shaping the other.

 

Marquez takes his reader into a house of mirrors where love is reflected, refracted, and twisted into every imaginable shape.

 

The Cast:

• Florentino Ariza:
• Fermina Daza:
• Dr. Juvenal Urbino:
• Aunt Escolastica:
• America Vicuna:
• Leona Cassiani:
• Hildebranda Sanchez:
• Transito Ariza: 

 

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Group work: defining love in LTC

 

Who loves whom in this novel? Break into groups and map "love connections" between characters.

• How does the meaning of love shift with each different relationship?
• How does death shape these love connections?

 

Write answers in the comment box below.

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Love in Colombia, 1880-1930.

 

Let's consider the different loves we encounter in the first half of the book.

 

The heterosexual love is the most obvious:

 

Let's begin with one of the many tangential anecdotes about "love": Lotario Thugut and the nights birds (63).

• What happens in this passage?
• Who are the players?
• What does this illustrate about love? 
• How does this shape the central narrative? 
• How does this shape our earlier interpretation of Dr. Urbino's relationship with the parrot? 

 

 

• How is Jeremiah de Saint-Amour's love life introduced?
• Who does he love?
• What is surprising about this love?
• Who (what character) filters our understanding of this love?
• How does death shape this love?

 

• How is the love (and marriage) of Dr. Urbino and Fermina described?
• Do they love each other?
• How is that love expressed?
• How does death shape this love?
• How does the parrot reflect or refract our understanding of love in the Urbino household?

 

 

• How is the romance between Fermina Daza and Florentino Ariza described?
• How does it start?
• How does text shape reality (see pp56 - 58)?
• How does death shape this love (even from the beginning)? 

 

What other kinds of love relationships exist in this novel?

 

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Life in Colombia, 1880 - 1930.

 

Colombia gained independence from Spain in 1822 and abolished slavery in 1851, but it could be argued that the nation is still reeling from the violence of the European conquest. Although the world is transitioning from agrarian to industrial modernity, the racism, poverty, and violence of Colombian life still reflect the forces of slavery and colonialism.

 

The World Factbook summarizes Colombian life:

 

Colombia is in the midst of a demographic transition resulting from steady declines in its fertility, mortality, and population growth rates. The birth rate has fallen from more than 6 children per woman in the 1960s to just above replacement level today as a result of increased literacy, family planning services, and urbanization. However, income inequality is among the worst in the world, and more than a third of the population lives below the poverty line.

 

Colombia experiences significant legal and illegal economic emigration and refugee flows. Large-scale labor emigration dates to the 1960s; Venezuela and the United States continue to be the main host countries. Colombia is the largest source of Latin American refugees in Latin America, nearly 400,000 of whom live primarily in Venezuela and Ecuador. Forced displacement remains prevalent because of violence among guerrillas, paramilitary groups, and Colombian security forces. Afro-Colombian and indigenous populations are disproportionately affected. A leading NGO estimates that 5.2 million people have been displaced since 1985, while the Colombian Government estimates 3.6 million since 2000. These estimates may undercount actual numbers because not all internally displaced persons are registered. Historically, Colombia also has one of the world's highest levels of forced disappearances. About 30,000 cases have been recorded over the last four decades - although the number is likely to be much higher - including human rights activists, trade unionists, Afro-Colombians, indigenous people, and farmers in rural conflict zones.

 

Discussion Question

• What social/racial/economic forces are described in the text? Be specific.
  
• How does love complicate these social/racial/economic forces? Does it reinforce them? Does it challenge them? 

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Cultural Collisions: Chinese Immigrants in Colombia

 

We're going to start today's class by re-reading the description of the Poetic Festival (pp193 - 195).

 

Discussion Questions:

• What does this passage illustrate about concepts of race, citizenship and immigration in Colombia at the beginning of the twentieth-century?
• How does this passage relate to the overarching post-colonial narrative? 

 

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Death in Colombia, 1880 - 1930.

 

The title of Marquez's book identifies a particular kind of deadly disease: CHOLERA.

 

According the the World Health Organization:

Cholera is an acute diarrhoeal infection caused by ingestion of food or water contaminated with the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. Every year, there are an estimated 3–5 million cholera cases and 100 000–120 000 deaths due to cholera. The short incubation period of two hours to five days, enhances the potentially explosive pattern of outbreaks. ("Cholera")

 

Key facts

• Cholera is an acute diarrhoeal disease that can kill within hours if left untreated.
• There are an estimated 3–5 million cholera cases and 100 000–120 000 deaths due to cholera every year.
• Up to 80% of cases can be successfully treated with oral rehydration salts.
• Effective control measures rely on prevention, preparedness and response.
• Provision of safe water and sanitation is critical in reducing the impact of cholera and other waterborne diseases.
• Oral cholera vaccines are considered an additional means to control cholera, but should not replace conventional control measures.

 

Cholera originated in the Ganges delta in India. During the nineteenth century, the bacteria traveled around the world (carried by trade ships and the circulation of colonial bodies). There have been SIX pandemics since the 1800s, including one in the United States in 1991. Cholera is now endemic in many parts of the world.

 

Discussion Question:

• How does the movement of cholera (the cholera epidemic) model the global forces of imperialism that shaped the nineteenth century?
• What does cholera symbolize in this text?  
  
• When Florentino Ariza falls desperately ill after delivering his love epistle to Fermina, Transito Ariza concludes: "the symptoms of love were the same as those of cholera" (62). How does this idea inform the entire narrative?  
• How is love medicalized by Dr. Juvenal Urbino (see 105)?
• How do love and death shape his medical career (see 115)?
• How does Dr. Juvenal Urbino prevent cholera epidemics in Colombia? 
  

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Filming Love in the Time of Cholera

Group work: break into groups and discuss how you would film Love in the Time of Cholera.

• What chronological choices would you make?
• Who would play the parts?
• Would you use actors who have played similar roles before (the way Colin Firth is used in a lot of Austen spoofs because of his famous role as Mr. Darcy in the A&E film)?
• What sort of scenery would you use?
• How would you depict the cholera epidemic?

 

The Cast:

• Florentino Ariza: Charlie Sheen/Quagmire
• Fermina Daza: Charlie Sheen/Bonnie
• Dr. Juvenal Urbino: Charlie Sheen/Joe
• Aunt Escolastica: Charlie Sheen
• America Vicuna: Charlie Sheen/Meg
• Leona Cassiani:Charlie Sheen
• Hildebranda Sanchez:Charlie Sheen
• Transito Ariza: Charlie Sheen
• Jeremiah de Saint Amour: Charlie Sheen/ Herbert the Pervert 
• "How I Met Your Mother"

 

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The Empire Writes Back: Conrad and Marquez

 

Think about Conrad and Marquez. Although the term "magical realism" is usually applied exclusively to Marquez, could it be applied to Conrad's writing too? When are magic and the supernatural referenced in the text? What is their function? How do they approach issues of colonialism in their texts? 

 

Discussion Questions:

 

• How does Conrad represent imperialism on the Congo in Africa?
• Whose perspective does Conrad privilege?

 

• How does Marquez represent imperialism in Colombia?
• Whose perspective does Marquez privilege?

 

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Responding to Colonialism through Art

 

"Train of Death" (1950) Debora Arango

In this painting, Arango commemorates the Banana Field Massacres, which Marquez describes in One Hundred Years of Solitude.

 

Consider Juan Fernando Cobo's recent series "Altares" (linked here).

Cobo called for Latin American poets to speak out about violence against women and published and illustrated a book Women, Violence, and Solitude (reminiscent of Marquez's work).

 

The term "altares" means sacrificial altar. How does this series deal with the themes of death? Love?

 

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