Poor Poor Little Vladimir

In Turgenev's First Love, Vladimir faces something that every young boy goes through: a first "love."  Vladimir has a childish infatuation with Zinaida Alexandrovna Zasyekina.  At least once in every young boy's life, he finds someone, often an older more experienced woman, that he becomes completely in love with.  In my opinion it is this kind of love that is the purest least adulterated kind of love.  I this love there is no inhibitions, no corruption of what love truly is. Now I'm not saying that what Vladimir, or any young man in this case, is experiencing is actually love, just that his absolute devotion was not corrupted by lust.  Before hormones can get in the way, emotion rules the soul.  And emotion rules Vladimir's infatuation with Zinaida.