First Love. Refers to Vladimir, in Turgenev's "First Love", and Tatyana, in Pushkin's "Eugene Onegin"

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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, naïve 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...