Outside Forces Creating Change in Characters: Love in the Time of Cholera and The Metamorphosis

Authors are often well known for their use of outside forces to initiate change within the relationships of their main characters. The works Love in the Time of Cholera and The Metamorphosis are exemplary in this respect. The author’s choice, in both works, to use an outside force helps develop the storyline in each and brings out an underlying irony. Marquez chose to use Dr. Juvenal Urbino, a highly esteemed and prosperous doctor, as an outside force that initiated change in the relationship between Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza. Kafka chose to use three boarders to initiate the rapid decay of Gregor and Grete’s brother-sister relationship. Both consistencies and inconsistencies exist between the ways in which each author uses the change. These consistencies and inconsistencies, when explored, can be noted as the single most important contribution to each work.

The authors chose two different initial relationships in their works. Marquez uses a soon to be married couple, Florentino and Fermina. Kafka decides to use a brother-sister relationship between Gregor and Grete. The relationship between Fermina and Florentino began when Florentino said “All I ask is that you accept a letter from me”(Marquez 60). Their initial relationship was characterized by their newfound love. They sent letters and poems back and forth to one another, engaged in a long distance relationship when Lorenzo Daza, Fermina’s father, moved Fermina away with her cousin Hildebranda and even had secret passwords. Florentino was noted in the book for making himself sick by eating flowers because he was so in love with Fermina. In the case of Gregor and Grete, they treated each other just as any brother and sister would. They could count on each other and i...

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...ifferent countries writing two different styles, still somehow both decide to use similar picture perfect relationships between Gregor and Grete and Florentino and Fermina and then both use money to destroy them suggests the importance of these consistencies and their contributions to the works. In the case of The Metamorphosis, one must consider that there were other reasons as to why a change took place in the relationship of Gregor and Grete, including Grete’s not being able to handle her brother’s new physique. Ultimately, however, the three boarders were the most significant. After reading these works, one can entertain the thought that authors single most important contributions to their works is the use of an outside force to initiate change in the two main relationships. If it wasn’t for the introduction of these forces, each story would have been pointless.