Parental Influence on Clashes with Society in Love in the Time of Cholera and The Stranger

Individuals are generally perceived to be productions of their upbringings and socialization. Latin author, Gabriel García Márquez and Algerian writer Albert Camus, introduce how their characters conflict with socialization as a result of their cultivation in Love in the Time of Cholera and The Stranger respectively. In Márquez’s novel, the key female role is assigned to Fermina Daza, a middle class Latina in the 1800s-1900s, expected to hold prestige and marry wealthy by her father and societal pressures. In The Stranger, Meursault, the protagonist, develops a niche for logic rather than influence which provides the Christian based society with a reason to have a heinous perception of him when he fails to express emotion at his mother’s funeral. The mainstream societies in Love in the Time of Cholera and The Stranger expect affectionate relationships between parents and offspring that the protagonists, Fermina Daza and Meursault, lack which vitally develops their character away from societal norms

Fermina Daza was raised in an environment where women’s success is based on her ability to marry a man of honor and monetary value. She is expected to be brought up in this manner by a fellow female or mother; however Fermina’s mother died when Fermina was very young, thus her father, Lorenzo Daza, an illiterate mule trader, was left to take on the role. Márquez identifies Lorenzo’s motives and expectations for Fermina as he states, “When [Lorenzo Daza’s] wife died, he had set only one goal for himself: to turn his daughter into a great lady.” His emphasis on his one goal for Fermina infers that he did not necessarily have the to intentions to build or establish a communicative relationship with his daughter. He wanted better for Fe...

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...o is clearly absent from the scene and his life, thus leaving him in the position to be attacked without a defensive father figure.

Love in the Time of Cholera and The Stranger express familial influences on the main characters Fermina Daza and Meursault promote their outcast radical nature. Fermina Daza father’s forceful tactics towards societal norms, influenced her protests against those behaviors. Similarly, Meursault’s lack of parental presence influenced his social values to be out of those of the general public. Because of their undesired parental relationships, they both experience controversial man vs. society conflicts.

Works Cited

Camus, Albert. The Stranger. Trans. Mathew Ward. New York: Vintage International, 1989. Print.

García, Márquez Gabriel. Love in the Time of Cholera: a Novel. Edith Grossman. New York: Vintage. 2003. Print.