Özet:

Epidemics are closely related to literature along with sciences such as medicine, biology, psychology, sociology and economics. The novel Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez, a Colombian writer who settled in Barcelona in the last years of his life, is one of the masterpieces written when the cholera epidemic took over the world. The epidemic of cholera outbroke right after the plague and led to the death of many people, caused psychological and sociological destruction and shook the economic conditions of countries. The novel has been translated into many languages, adapted to movies and analyzed in writings many times around the world. It tells the tragic story of Florentino Ariza's love for Fermina Daza. While the novel tells the devotion of a man to the woman, he loves for more than half a century, it also reveals how virtuous patience is in love. The novel allows us to witness the story of the character named Florentino Ariza in a tragic love story when cholera disease spread. The idea that love is a virtuous feeling is highlighted throughout the novel. In this novel based on a love triangle, Doctor Urbino is another male character, who is impressed by Fermina Daza at first sight and married her. Having to surrender to love while believing in scientific facts, Doctor Urbino spends all his energy on winning the heart of the woman he loves after the day he sees her. The love of Doctor Urbino, who took advantage of cholera and made his name by combatting this disease, turns into an ordinary marriage after marrying Fermina Daza. Shortly after, the Doctor's death from cholera, and Florentino Ariza's confession of half a century of love to his ex, while still at the funeral of the Doctor, sparks a rekindled love. The novel is based on the relationship between love and epidemic. This study analyzes Gabriel García Márquez's novel Love in the Time of Cholera through the hermeneutic method and dwells upon the relationship between literature and epidemics.