Love in the Time of Cholera

Reading Check and Short Answer Questions on key points are designed for guided reading assignments, in-class review, formative assessment, quizzes, and more.

SECTION 1

Reading Check

1. What is Juvenal Urbino’s occupation?

2. How does Jeremiah de Saint-Amour die?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. What does Florentino Ariza tell Fermina Daza on the night of her husband’s funeral? How does Fermina respond?

Paired Resource

“Colombia’s Civil Warriors: Roots of Conflict”

• This PBS article documents the troubled history of Colombia.
• The information in this resource connects to the themes of The Interconnectedness of Love and Suffering and The Inevitability of Aging and Death.
• What were the defining events of Colombian history at the turn of the 20th century? How might these events have impacted the lives of people?

SECTION 2

Reading Check

1. What is young Florentino’s first job?

2. For what does Florentino’s mother mistake his lovesickness?

3. What instrument does Florentino use to serenade Fermina?

4. What does Florentino’s mother do to prepare for her son’s marriage to Fermina?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. Why is Florentino unable to profess his love to Fermina when he first meets her?

2. Why does Florentino’s mother recommend that he not deliver his first letter to Fermina?

3. How does Lorenzo Daza find out about his daughter’s relationship with Florentino? How does he react?

Paired Resources

“Cholera”

• This reference article from the World Health Organization provides an overview of cholera.
• What is the role of cholera in the novel? What various ideas might it represent symbolically?

“Famous Love Letters”

• This post includes excerpts from famous love letters by notable historical literary figures such as Oscar Wilde, Ernest Hemingway, and Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
• The content of the letters shares the theme of The Interconnectedness of Love and Suffering.
• What are some of the prominent characteristics of love letters? Why do you think love letters are not as popular anymore?

SECTION 3

Reading Check

1. How does Juvenal Urbino meet Fermina?

2. Why does Florentino’s mother find him a new job in a distant city?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. Why is Juvenal Urbino disappointed when he comes home from studying in Paris?

2. Why does Hildebranda Sánchez identify so strongly with Florentino?

3. Where do Fermina and Urbino spend their honeymoon? What does Fermina say about the experience?

SECTION 4

Reading Check

1. What does Florentino do in the Avenue of the Scribes?

2. What are Florentino’s impressions of Urbino when he first meets him?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. Why is Florentino’s uncle initially reluctant to give him a job at the riverboat company? Why does he change his mind?

2. Who is Leona Cassiani? Identify this character’s traits and in terms of relationships to other characters.

3. Why is Fermina unhappy after she and Urbino return from Europe?

Paired Resource

“Chesapeake Steamboats”

• This 6-minute video from the Steamboat Era Museum discusses the history of steamboats on the Chesapeake.
• How do the developments in river travel represent advancement and the passage of time in the novel?

SECTION 5

Reading Check

1. What is the most noticeable toll age takes on Florentino?

2. Who is Florentino’s only lover at the time Urbino dies?

3. What does Florentino find on his doorstep three weeks after Urbino’s death?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. Why does Florentino think Fermina has left the city? Why has she actually left?

SECTION 6

Reading Check

1. What is contained in the letter the widowed Fermina sends Florentino?

2. What does Fermina tell Florentino when she sees him at Urbino’s one-year memorial service?

3. Who is Ofelia?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. How do Florentino’s almost daily letters impact the widowed Fermina?

2. Why does Fermina throw her daughter out of her house?

3. What does Florentino do to ensure that he and Fermina complete their riverboat cruise in private? What problems does this cause for them later on?

Recommended Next Reads 

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez

• This multigenerational novel, which earned Márquez the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982, is set in the fictional city of Macondo.
• Shared themes include The Interconnectedness of Love and Suffering and The Inevitability of Death and Aging.
• Shared topics include romance, war, and family relationships.
• One Hundred Years of Solitude on SuperSummary

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

• This well-known romance novel features a man who tries to recapture a lost relationship.
• Shared themes include The Interconnectedness of Love and Suffering and The Impact of Class on Love Relationships.
• Shared topics include society, relationships, and romance.
• The Great Gatsby on SuperSummary