The Sorrows of Young Werther

This short series of letters offers glimpses of Werther’s growing affection for Lotte and his fragile happiness. On July 8, Werther humorously reflects on his behavior and acknowledges his childishness in longing for Lotte’s attention. During a recent encounter, Lotte barely acknowledged him in favor of her other friends, and he cries when she departs with them. However, he entertains the possibility that Lotte turns to look back at him and finds a hint of consolation in that uncertainty. On July 10, he tells Wilhelm how frustrating it is when someone asks him if he “likes” Lotte—a word that he finds utterly inadequate to the situation.

The July 11 letter describes Madame M., a dying woman whom Lotte has been visiting. A few days prior, Lotte had been privy to Madame M.’s confession to her husband that she secretly defrauded him for 30 years. Because her husband had never increased her allowance for household management, she began stealing from him to make up the difference. What makes her confess now is that she worries he will expect his second wife to manage on the original miserly sum. Werther marvels at the credulity of men who allow themselves to be deceived. However, Werther remains convinced of Lotte’s interest in him, claiming that he is not allowing himself to be deceived in the July 13 letter. Still, he does acknowledge a conflicting sentiment when Lotte speaks affectionately about Albert.

He returns, on July 16, to describing the overwhelming physical response to being in Lotte’s presence. Despite his strong emotions, he insists on his feelings’ purity and considers Lotte sacred. When Werther cannot see Lotte in person on July 18, he sends his servant to her house, finding joy in just the proximity of someone associated with him to her. He dismisses any potential mockery, asserting that the happiness derived from love is genuine and should not be ridiculed—the things that make us happy, he says to Wilhelm, cannot be merely “shadows and apparitions” (54).

The July 20 and 24 letters respond to specific concerns raised by Wilhelm. On July 20, Werther rejects Wilhelm’s suggestion that he work with a certain ambassador. He expresses an aversion to subordination and already finds the ambassador “disagreeable.” Despite his mother’s wish for him to find work, Werther cannot bring himself to care about such mundane goals. On July 24, he admits that he has not been drawing lately, either. His happiness has not translated into artistic production. He has failed in three attempts to do a portrait of Lotte and has settled for a silhouette profile. Werther has also wholly lost his passion for drawing. He mentions his unsuccessful attempts at portraying Lotte and ultimately has to settle for a sketched profile of her.

Two letters are dated July 26. The first is addressed to Lotte; it appears to be part of an ongoing conversation. Werther asks her not to dry the ink on her letters with sand because he could feel the grit when he “hastily” raised her most recent note to his lips. The July 26 letter to Wilhelm acknowledges Werther’s perpetual failure to keep resolutions not to see Lotte so often. He describes his attraction to her as magnetic.

Albert’s arrival, recorded in the July 30 letter, prompts Werther to decide to leave Wahlheim. Albert has proved to be a “dear and honest man whom one cannot help liking” (56), and Werther likes and respects him. Despite this seeming friendship, Werther cannot tolerate seeing Lotte and Albert together. His inner “misery” has begun to spill over into more overt behavior, and he admits to Wilhelm that Lotte has already had to reproach him for making a scene. On August 8, Werther concedes that Wilhelm’s advice to him to either pursue his romantic desires for Lotte or relinquish them entirely is probably correct. However, he cannot see his situation in such “either-or” terms and still seeks a way around the decision. He compares his situation to a terminal disease and asks Wilhelm if he would advise a person in that situation “to put an end to his miseries with one sharp thrust of his dagger” (58). He questions if one can easily end such a condition. In a postscript added that evening, Werther displays a moment of self-awareness; looking at his diary, he realizes that he has known what he was getting into the whole time and has gone along with it anyway.

On August 10, Werther reflects on the life he could have led if he were not a “fool.” He has been accepted into Lotte’s circle, and Albert values him as much as the rest of the family. The absurdity of the situation makes Werther cry. Still, he listens to Albert talk about Lotte’s late mother and hears him praise Lotte herself. Moreover, Albert will be remaining in the area, working in a well-paid court position. He is already exceedingly popular.

Werther describes a conversation he had with Albert in the long letter of August 12, calling him “the best fellow on earth” (59). Werther had asked to borrow Albert’s pistols, only to find out that Albert keeps his guns unloaded because of a previous incident where someone was accidentally injured while playing with the loaded gun. Werther, becoming bored with Albert’s discourse, puts one of the guns to his own head, prompting Albert to react with horror. He cannot understand why someone would shoot themselves on purpose; Werther counters that one cannot always know the reasons why someone would end their own life. A longer conversation on suicide ensues, where Albert continually dismisses Werther’s arguments in favor of it—at least in limited circumstances—as fanciful and absurd.

In his August 15 letter, Werther notes that both Lotte and the children exhibit a strong attachment to him. The children now allow him to cut their bread for them—as Werther had seen Lotte do the day they met. They also enjoy hearing his stories and pay more attention to the details than he does. The August 18 letter turns the philosophical question of how the source of happiness can become the source of despair. He describes the delight he once found in the beauty of nature, but his perception has changed, and he now views it as a force of destruction. Even a simple walk through the forest fills him with guilt over the potential harm caused to insects and small creatures. He grapples with the impermanence of existence and the overwhelming sense of mortality that permeates the world. The August 21 letter recounts the brief solace he finds by dreaming Lotte is near, a solace overwhelmed by the reality of her absence. He is unable to be idle, yet has difficulty working, as he tells Wilhelm on August 22. Werther laments his lost appreciation for nature, new distaste for books, and lack of motivation. Despite finally considering working for the ambassador to escape his turmoil, he worries his restlessness will follow him.

On his birthday, August 28, Werther receives a birthday packet from Albert and Lotte. It contains a pink ribbon that Lotte wore in her dress the first time Werther saw her and a pocket edition of Homer to carry on his walks. Werther, moved by the thoughtfulness of these gifts, reflects on the transience of happiness, the fleeting nature of life’s flowers, and the rarity of genuinely fulfilling experiences. Despite the inevitable decay of some fruits, he appreciates the present summer, occasionally helping Lotte in her orchard. By August 30, Werther is once again overwhelmed both mentally and physically. He berates himself for his foolishness. When he cannot find respite, he wanders the countryside until he exhausts himself. Death seems the only escape. Wilhelm’s response to this missive “stiffen[s] [his] wavering resolve” (69), and on September 3, Werther decides, definitively, to leave. A longer letter a week later—September 10—describes in detail the last night that Werther spent with Lotte and Albert. They discuss the death of Lotte’s mother and Lotte’s sense that her spirit lives on with her. Werther throws himself at her feet as Lotte describes her mother’s final moments, for which both she and Albert were present. When they leave, Werther collapses in tears.