Attacking an unsuspecting, vulnerable victim, the notion of love like the disease cholera, penetrates the body with an unyielding force. Similar symptoms concentrated in the stomach area create a feverish like type of a mental state where illusions defy reality. Both of these viruses are curable with immediate replacement of the elements that have been drained from the victim's body. Love and cholera's resemblance as a metaphor can be seen in Gabriel Garcia Marquez's novel, "…showed first 75 words of 933 total…

…showed last 75 words of 933 total…the phantoms of disillusion: beyond love" (345), allowing Garcia Marquez to sublimely relate to the reader how once over the illusionary sickness of passionate love, the two characters have entered a new realm. A place where illusioned romantic love is diminished, reality enters and a clear sense of being can be enacted. Just as when cholera patients are replenished with the lost fluids and a clean sense of being is available to the newly healthy body.