Analysis of Friend And Enemy
Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev 1818 (Oryol, Oryol Governorate) – 1883 ( Bougival, Seine-et-Oise)
A prisoner, condemned to confinement for life, broke out of his prison and took to head-long flight.... After him, just on his heels flew his gaolers in pursuit.
He ran with all his might.... His pursuers began to be left behind.
But behold, before him was a river with precipitous banks, a narrow, but deep river.... And he could not swim!
A thin rotten plank had been thrown across from one bank to the other. The fugitive already had his foot upon it.... But it so happened that just there beside the river stood his best friend and his bitterest enemy.
His enemy said nothing, he merely folded his arms; but the friend shrieked at the top of his voice: 'Heavens! What are you doing? Madman, think what you're about! Don't you see the plank's utterly rotten? It will break under your weight, and you will inevitably perish!'
'But there is no other way to cross ... and don't you hear them in pursuit?' groaned the poor wretch in despair, and he stepped on to the plank.
'I won't allow it!... No, I won't allow you to rush to destruction!' cried the zealous friend, and he snatched the plank from under the fugitive. The latter instantly fell into the boiling torrent, and was drowned.
The enemy smiled complacently, and walked away; but the friend sat down on the bank, and fell to weeping bitterly over his poor ... poor friend!
To blame himself for his destruction did not however occur to him ... not for an instant.
'He would not listen to me! He would not listen!' he murmured dejectedly.
'Though indeed,' he added at last. 'He would have had, to be sure, to languish his whole life long in an awful prison! At any rate, he is out of suffering now! He is better off now! Such was bound to be his fate, I suppose!
'And yet I am sorry, from humane feeling!'
And the kind soul continued to sob inconsolably over the fate of his misguided friend.
Scheme | X X X X X X X A X X X X A |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 0100011010111111100111111011111111001 11111110100111101 1010111010101001010111001111 0110111101111101001000101110111111011101010111101100100 1100110110101110111011111011110111101111011001011110110110100010 1111101110111100110110010111101 110111110111110101010101101110010001010010101010011 01001010001011011110101110100101111 1101110101110011111110 1111011111101101 10111011111111111011110110101101111110011110111111111101 01111010110 00110101111001110101 |
Characters | 1,889 |
Words | 357 |
Sentences | 38 |
Stanzas | 13 |
Stanza Lengths | 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1 |
Lines Amount | 13 |
Letters per line (avg) | 109 |
Words per line (avg) | 26 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 109 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 26 |
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Submitted on August 03, 2020
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:47 min read
- 9 Views
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"Friend And Enemy" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 23 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/55648/friend-and-enemy>.
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