Fermina Daza is the protagonist of the book, which follows her life from age fourteen to age seventy-two. The growth of each character in the novel is defined by his or her relationship to love, and for Fermina Daza, love evolves over the novel from romantic illusion to sturdy, platonic marriage to comfortable passion. Fermina’s experience of each of these kinds of love allows her to shift her idea of herself as she gets older—she is defined during her marriage by her husband’s wants and needs, and she reconnects with her own identity after his death.

Fermina Daza is a haughty, stubborn woman who balances her flares of temper with a deep love of animals. She maintains her haughtiness through a cultivation of deep pain: infidelity, grief, and the trauma of discovering her true origins as the daughter of lifelong crook all contribute to her cold bearing and imperviousness. Fermina seeks authentic love; she wants more than the cold stability of her marriage to Urbino and something more lasting than the fire of youthful passion. She wants a balanced relationship, and she finds it at the end of her life in Florentino Ariza, who, over the course of his life, has learned how to love her the way she needs to be loved.