The Theme Of Overcoming Challenges In First Frost

The poem, 'First Frost' by Andrei Voznesensky, expresses many themes. The most important theme is the theme of overcoming challenges expressed through heartbreak. In this poem, a girl has experienced the heartbreak of being broken up with over the phone as she is crying in a telephone booth. Voznesensky uses figurative language to enhance the idea of this theme. This includes similes, metaphors, and repetition. This figurative language creates imagery which helps develop the theme of the poem.

The use of similes enhances the poem by comparing the way the girl's hand felt to ice. The line 'Fingers like ice' is a simile since it uses the words 'like' or 'as'. This line creates of the image of cold hands. The girl's hands are cold since she was in the telephone booth.

The author used metaphors to enhance the poem in the last stanza. Voznesensky wrote 'It is the start of winter glittering on her cheek, the first frost of having been hurt.' This line relates to the theme since the 'winter glittering on her cheek' is a metaphor for the tears on her cheek from crying. The first frost of being hurt is also a metaphor for the the first of many hardships in life to come.

The use of repetition enhanced the poem as it brought it back to theme of overcoming challenges. The words 'first frost' appear in the 4th and 5th stanza along with the title. As described above this is a metaphor for the first of many heartbreaks to come. People will come and go in your life but when those who have an impact on you leave, the amount of emotion you feel is incomparable to what you would feel if they did nothing for you at all. This is something everyone goes through with relationships.

In conclusion, the use of figurative language (simile, metaphor, and repetition) enhances the poem by creating imagery of the theme of overcoming challenges. In my opinion, this poem is a very real expression of reality. I found the comparison of the first frost to your first breakup interesting. Living in the mountains I understand the challenge of the first frost in the sense of it being cold and me no quite ready for autumn to end. This can be the same with relationships when you are more invested than the other partner and they breakup with you over the fact that they aren't quite ready to be where your are.