First Love: Pathway To Adulthood :: essays research papers

First Love: Pathway to Adulthood Love is one of the strongest emotions that a human being can feel. It can arise ever so suddenly, spreading a feeling of warm happiness through every inch of a person; like wildfire spreading through a tree. But as the feelings become more intense, the flame of passion can turn into a blazing fire that burns painfully through every vein. A person's first love is especially powerful because it grows from an innocent, naà ¯ve passion. Such was the case for both Vladimir, in Turgenev's First Love, and Tatyana, in Pushkin's Eugene Onegin. The first experience of unrequited love for Vladimir and Tatyana was filled with these raptures and tribulations, which, although left them broken hearted, gave them the strength and maturity needed to become adults. Throughout the genre of First Love, Vladimir was shown to be completely swooped up in overwhelming emotion for Zinaida. Vladimir was entranced with her beauty from the moment he first saw her, "I gazed at her, and how dear she already was to me , and how near. It seemed to me that I had known her for a long time, and that before her I had known nothing and had not lived†¦. (33)" Vladimir was in love at the first sight of her. He couldn't help himself from becoming infatuated with her because he didn't know the first thing about love. As the genre moves on, Vladimir's feelings for Zinaida became deeper and deeper. Vladimir thought to himself: I felt weary and at peace, but the image of Zinaida still hovered triumphant over my soul, though even this image seemed more tranquil. Like a swan rising from the grasses of the marsh, it stood out from the unlovely shapes which surrounded it, and I, as I fell asleep, in parting for the last time clung to it, in trusting adoration. (48) Vladimir allows himself to become completely wrapped up in Zinaida to the point where it becomes an obsession. He is in love with her so much that he even envisions himself rescuing her, as if from any other man: "I saw a vision of myself saving her from the hands of her enemies: I imagined how, covered with blood, I tore her from the very jaws of some dark dungeon and then died at her feet (71-72)." Vladimir was so lost in love for Zinaida that he fantasized about her in order to make their love seem real. Although Vladimir's obsessive love for Zinaida brought wonderful emotions, it also brought the pain and suffering of jealousy and rejection. The raptures that Vladimir experienced went hand in hand with the