How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
She often said to him: "I adore you because you made me a whore."
Said in another way, she was right. Florentino Ariza had stripped her of the virginity of a conventional marriage, more pernicious than congenital virginity or the abstinence of widowhood. He had taught her that nothing one does in bed is immoral if it helps to perpetuate love. And something else that from that time on would be her reason for living: he convinced her that one comes into the world with a predetermined allowment of lays, and whoever does not use them for whatever reason, one's own or someone else's, willingly or unwillingly, loses them forever. It was to her credit that she took him at his word. (3.144-145)
Hold on just a second – wasn't the Widow Nazaret the one to make the decision to go to bed with Florentino? Wasn't it Florentino's mom's idea in the first place to have the widow sleep in Florentino's room? So why does Florentino get all the credit for introducing the Widow Nazaret to her sexually emancipated lifestyle? It seems like she was the one to do him a favor.
Quote #2
And yet that first experience, although cruel and short-lived, did not leave her bitter; rather, she had the overwhelming conviction that with or without marriage, or God, or the law, life was not worth living without a man in her bed. What Florentino Ariza liked best about her was that in order to reach the heights of glory, she had to suck on an infant's pacifier while they made love. (4.97)
García Márquez has been accused of portraying women in stereotypical ways. One of his "types," according to his critics, is the prostitute – the promiscuous woman who attains "liberation" through sex. (The Widow Nazaret seems to be the perfect example of this stereotype – just see the previous quote.) When you consider that what Florentino likes best about his girlfriend Sara Noriega is her kinky fondness for sex toys, it makes you wonder: is her character anything more than a stereotype?
Quote #3
In less bitter circumstances he would have persisted in his pursuit of Sara Noriega, certain of ending the evening rolling in bed with her, for he convinced that once a woman goes to bed with a man, she will continue to go to bed with him whenever he desires, as long as he knows how to move her to passion each time. (4.111)
Florentino has some pretty sexist opinions about women. Here, however, Florentino's backwards idea is shown to be false. Sara Noriega rejects him and he goes home humiliated.
Quote #4
"We men are miserable slaves of prejudice," he had once said to her. "But when a woman decides to sleep with a man, there is no wall she will not scale, no fortress she will not destroy, no moral consideration she will not ignore at its very root: there is no God worth worrying about." (6.168)
Dr. Juvenal Urbino's words to his wife reflect a gendered understanding of sex that is present throughout the book, but it's hard to say whether the author would agree with this statement. After all, it doesn't seem that the female characters are any less prejudiced than the male characters when it comes to their ideas of what kind of sexual relationships are appropriate.
Quote #5
"If we're going to do it, let's do it," she said, "but let's do it like grownups." (6.196)
No bodice-ripping here. Fermina has always been much more realistic than Florentino, and it seems she's unwilling to play any games when it comes to consummating their fifty-year-old love affair. After all, they're not kids anymore, and physical lovemaking at this juncture (just like all the emotional stuff) is bound to bring disappointments along with pleasures.
Quote #6
Florentino Ariza, for his part, suddenly asked himself what he would never have dared to ask himself before: what kind of secret life had she led outside of her marriage? Nothing would have surprised him, because he knew that women are just like men in their secret adventures: the same stratagems, the same sudden inspirations, the same betrayals without remorse. (6.202)
Compare this to Dr. Urbino's earlier statement, where he talks about the differences between men and women when it comes to sex. Florentino, on the other hand, seems to think they're pretty similar.
Quote #7
The she took the final step: she searched for him where he was not, she searched again without hope, and she found him unarmed.
"It's dead," he said […] "Too much love is as bad for this as no love at all."
But he said it without conviction: he was ashamed, furious with himself, longing for some reason to blame her for his failure. (6.202)
Well this isn't how the typical romance story is supposed to go. The hero finally gets the heroine into the sack…and he's impotent. Poor Florentino – he wants so desperately for his love affair with Fermina to follow all the romantic clichés, but reality has intervened at every turn. This time he's been thwarted by his own body.
Quote #8
It was the first time she had made love in over twenty years, and she had been held back by her curiosity concerning how it would feel at her age after so long a respite. But he had not given her time to find out if her body loved him too. It had been hurried and sad, and she thought: Now we've screwed up everything. (6.206)
For all his experience, Florentino's first sexual encounter with Fermina is so bad it could be the awkward first time of a teenager. So much for "doing it like grownups."
Quote #9
When at last she recovered her self-possession in the perfumed oasis of her cabin, they made the tranquil, wholesome love of experienced grandparents, which she would keep as her best memory of that lunatic voyage. It was as if they had leapt over the arduous cavalry of conjugal life and gone straight to the heart of love. (6.221)
Fermina and Florentino finally get it right, but again, this is not the passionate, bodice-ripping sexual encounter of most romantic novels. The lovers are elderly, and, while they have to take it slowly, their age and experience enables them to encounter something deeper than just passion.