A Literary Analysis of the First Love by Turgenev Essay

In Turgenev's First Love, Vladimir's journey from boyish love to maturity is a tumultuous, burdensome, and often painful expedition. This pilgrimage is a transition from the consuming passions of the young and restless heart to the sound maturity of adulthood. The chief purpose of this undergoing is to leave the inexperienced wanderer with a steadfast outlook on love, life, and the nature of human relationships. For Vladimir Petrovich this expedition is confounded by an unrequited and unfulfilled love that can be seen at every cobblestone of the way. So difficult is his ascent, that the objects of his affection (Zinaida, his father, and ultimately himself) put him through turmoil but eventually leave him with an understanding and acceptance in his adult life of his earlier passionate pursuits. He becomes aware of the consequences that love and adulterous affairs can have and his early romantic notions are replaced with a realistic outlook on love. Because Vladimir's education in the matters of the heart comes at the age of sixteen, when he hopelessly falls in love with the older and craftier Zinaida, it is only natural that his experience brims with romantic raptures and tribulations. He comes into the experience with ideal notions of romanticism which he acquires from the poetry and romantic literature that he reads in his childhood. "I would take a book with me - Kaidanov's lectures, for example - though I seldom opened it, and spent most of the time repeating lines of poetry aloud to myself - I knew a great many by then."( p. 23) From his first encounter with the mystical enchantress, his behavior alters without his understanding the reasons behind these modifications "As I was going to bed, without quite knowing why, I spun round two or three times on one foot then I put pomade on my hair, lay down, and slept like a top all night." (p. 27) Spinning round for no apparent reason and applying a...

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