[3] The city's "steamy and sleepy streets, rat-infested sewers, old slave quarter, decaying colonial architecture, and multifarious inhabitants" are mentioned variously in the text and mingle in the lives of the characters.

It is also made evident by the fact that society in the story believes that Fermina and Juvenal Urbino are perfectly happy in their marriage, while the reality of the situation is not so ideal.

The two men can be contrasted as the extremes of passion: one having too much, one too little; the central question of which is more conducive to love and happiness becomes the specific, personal choice that Fermina faces through her life.

Florentino's passionate pursuit of nearly countless women stands in contrast to Urbino's clinical discussion of male anatomy on their wedding night.

Urbino's eradication of cholera in the town takes on the additional symbolic meaning of ridding Fermina's life of rage, but also the passion.

[citation needed] It is this second meaning to the title that manifests itself in Florentino's hatred for Urbino's marriage to Fermina, as well as in the social strife and warfare that serves as a backdrop to the entire story.

The literary critic Michiko Kakutani praised the book in a review for The New York Times, saying: "Instead of using myths and dreams to illuminate the imaginative life of a people as he's done so often in the past, Mr. Garcia Marquez has revealed how the extraordinary is contained in the ordinary ...

"[8] The writer Thomas Pynchon, also for The New York Times, argued: "This novel is also revolutionary in daring to suggest that vows of love made under a presumption of immortality – youthful idiocy, to some – may yet be honored, much later in life when we ought to know better, in the face of the undeniable.

There is nothing I have read quite like this astonishing final chapter, symphonic, sure in its dynamics and tempo, moving like a riverboat too ... at the very best it results in works that can even return our worn souls to us, among which most certainly belongs Love in the Time of Cholera, this shining and heartbreaking novel.

"[9] Stone Village Pictures bought the movie rights from the author for US$3 million, and Mike Newell was chosen to direct it, with Ronald Harwood writing the script.

On his own initiative, García Márquez persuaded singer Shakira, who is from the nearby city of Barranquilla, to provide two songs for the film.

[11] In the 2000 film High Fidelity, the main character, Rob (played by John Cusack) owns a record store.

At the end of Jeanine Cummins' novel American Dirt, the protagonist Lydia re-reads Amor en los tiempos del colera, first in Spanish, then again in English.

In the episode "Milk" of the first season of the American sitcom How I Met Your Mother, the novel is mentioned as being the favorite of the show's protagonist, Ted Mosby.

He is also shown reading the book at the Farhamptom Train Station right before he meets the titular Mother in the finale episode "Last Forever".

In episode 4 of the 2021 Korean drama My Roommate Is a Gumiho, the male lead character Shin Woo-yeo (Jang Ki-yong) references the novel by saying, "You could be Fermina Daza in someone's eyes."