Fermina Daza: A Strong Independent Woman Anonymous 12th Grade

The idea of equality of the sexes in Latin America is a relatively new phenomena. Until the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, the time period of Love in the Time of Cholera, women were predominantly treated as the inferior sex. Therefore, women were also often excluded from taking part in public life like their male counterparts in areas such as those pertaining to politics, economics, and education. Although women of the time period do not enjoy the same social freedom of their male counterparts, Gabriel García Márquez in his novel Love in the Time of Cholera does not portray women as oppressed. Rather, Márquez portrays several of his female characters as strong, resourceful, and independent individuals. This is particularly evident in how the novel presents Fermina Daza in her marriage to Dr. Juvenal Urbino as a strong, independent woman who is the intellectual equal of her husband.

Despite not having received the same level of education as her husband, Fermina demonstrates that she is still the intellectual equal of her husband by outsmarting his rules. Unlike Fermina, who never finishes her studies nor receives her baccalaureate degree, Urbino "had completed advanced studies in medicine and surgery" to...