The Victim of Love or Society into the Novel Entitled The Sorrows of Young Werther - Essay Example

?Werther: the victim of love or society? Essay plan. Introduction: Who is Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and what genre is this book? Very brief indication of the plot (loves unobtainable woman and dies) End with question whether this is because of love or society. Paragraph 1: Many examples of extreme emotion, (examples) This shows Walther is indeed a victim of love Paragraph 2: Love is shown to be a kind of sickness. Walther is self- indulgent (examples) and he really loves himself most of all. Paragraph 3: Walther is aware that his love is forbidden, but carries on anyway. The surroundings seem to reflect his situation as an outsider (trees, children) This shows he is obsessed, and not part of “normal” society Paragraph 4: Reading between lines we can see that society teases him, and rightly so (examples) Conclusion: Go back to the initial question – is he a victim of love or society? Stress the melodrama of the ending and finish on the point that he is a victim of love, but it is not love of Charlotte, but love of himself (inflated ego). Werther: the victim of love or society? The novel entitled The Sorrows of Young Werther, which was written by the German philosopher, poet and author Johann Wolfgang von Goethe as a very young man in 1774, has become a classic work of European literature. It tells the tragic tale of a young gentleman who falls in love with an unobtainable woman and suffers so much as a result that he finally commits suicide. The form of the novel is a great part of its charm, since it is written as a series of letters from Werther to his male friend, allowing the reader an insight into his innermost thoughts. Only the final section is written by a third person, called the “editor” who picks up the story and informs the reader what has happened to the unhappy young author. The novel was an immediate success across the whole of Europe, no doubt because it matched and helped promote the emerging romantic sensibility of the times, but for modern readers it is quite an enigmatic work. The book can be read as a passionate story of the harmful power of romantic love, or indeed as the salutary tale of what can happen to a sensitive young man who grows up in a repressive and harmful society. This paper explores these two readings of the text in order to determine whether Werther should be seen as a victim of love, or of society. Evidence of the extreme force of Werther’s emotions can be found on almost every page of his book. He writes letters to his friend which are explicit about the tiniest and most intimate details of his thoughts. Many sentences have exclamation marks at the end to indicate surprise, or some outburst of strong feeling, and there are frequent gasps of “oh” and “ah” which express the sighs and moans of the infatuated Werther as he exclaims about the beauty of some scene, or the intensity of some emotion. On one level Werther is aware that his character is marked by a tendency to “ruminate on every petty vexation which fortune may dispense,” (Goethe, p. 4) and he resolves to overcome this failing. The outpourings of rapture at the idyllic setting of the town of Waldheim, with its quaint little inn and two majestic linden trees, reveal that on another level he is incapable of reining in the excesses of his emotions. If he is a victim of love throughout the early letters, then he is a willing victim, giving himself over to the desire for his beloved Charlotte, even though he constantly tries to remain chaste, and acknowledge the fact that she is promised to another man. Many poets and authors have theorized that love is a kind of sickness, which robs a man of his reason and makes his body suffer in all sorts of aches and pains. Werther is no different, and he uses metaphors of sickness to describe his state, for example: “the burning fever of my blood” (Goethe, p.7) and metaphors of healing to describe his beloved, for example “the same bright, beautiful creature whose presence softens pain…” (Goethe, p. 26). Another metaphor that he uses is one of religion, since he suggests that his love makes him worship Charlotte, (Goethe, p. 26). His emotional state absorbs him so completely that he loses touch with his own senses: “my mind becomes gradually excited to the highest excess, my sight grows dim, my hearing confused, my breathing oppressed as if by the hand of a murderer, and my beating heart seeks to obtain relief for my aching senses.” (Goethe, p. 41) This kind of narrative betrays an extreme self-indulgence, and though the character’s love for Charlotte is undoubtedly presented as genuine and deep, what impresses the reader far more than this is the young author’s obsession with recording the details of his own minute by minute sensations. There is at least as much self-love, and self-obsession in this narrative, as there is love for the young lady in question. In short, then, it is true to say that Werther is to some extent a victim of love, but in a selfish way which seeks attention and elevates his suffering to a state of public martyrdom. This public dimension brings us to the role that society plays in the fate of the young letter writing hero. Werther makes interesting theories about the relationship between the romantic lover and other members of society. In typically elaborate way he expounds this theory with analogies drawn from the physical world around him. The way he describes the two linden trees in the town of Waldheim is significant, for example, it shows that he projects his own feverish ideas about romantic love onto his surroundings, which are fairly typical of a German landscape in the late eighteenth century. Werther equates the two linden solid trees, and the charming scene of child hugging his younger brother, with the boundless expression of love in its natural form. Everything around him reminds him of Charlotte, and he takes issue with any object or person who dares to distract him from this major obsession. When a perfectly ordinary individual remarks to him, “love is natural; but you must love within bounds.” (Goethe, p.11), Werther dismisses the notion of belonging to society as a respectable and responsible citizen as something not worthy of a person like himself. The linden trees provide a backdrop to the story, like sentinels keeping watch to see that he remains constant in his love. When other people come on the scene, Werther notes “the company did not exactly please me” (Goethe, p. 14) and he withdraws to his preferred state of solitude, where he can immerse himself in his thoughts of the beloved. Society is troublesome to him, because he does not know how to talk to other people about Charlotte: “You should see how foolish I look in company when her name is mentioned, particularly when I am asked plainly how I like her.” (Goethe, p. 27). Werther is outraged that people expect him to say that he likes her, since he harbors feelings considerably stronger than a mere liking. Reading between the lines of the letters, it is possible to discern a society that perhaps teases him for his youthful infatuation, even though Werther himself cannot see any joke and takes the whole thing with the utmost seriousness. It is clear from the behavior of Charlotte that the rules of upper class society require her to be modest, and a dutiful wife to her husband. Werther is conscious of his own temptations, and struggles with keeping his thoughts on a platonic level, because he knows that it would be extremely problematic for him to step over the bounds of normal manners to declare his love, or show any signs of moving to any display of affection beyond the most polite conversation and gestures. He unburdens his heart to his male friend in the letter, but he cannot bring himself to break the taboos of society and disturb the marriage of Charlotte and her husband with any improper demands on her. Society sets insurmountable hurdles in the way, and he refrains from pushing against them because he knows this would ruin his reputation, and also Charlotte’s. Some readers may see this as a harsh and repressive society, demanding a high level of self-control and discipline of its young people. On the other hand, marriage vows are common in many cultures, and throughout history, and it is likely that the swooning figure of a young admirer would provoke gentle ridicule and ultimately exclusion from a married couple’s household if it continued for any length of time. The embarrassment factor alone is certain to encourage this kind of exclusionary action. The influence of society in Goethe’s novel is, therefore, not the cause of his suffering, nor of his death. Millions of young men across the world come to terms with love that is not returned in the same measure, and they do not write plaintive letters to their friends and work themselves into a frenzy until they can only see one way out of their dilemma, namely death. It is as if Werther has no other talent than to present himself as a martyr to love, and having adopted this pose, his ego prevents him from stepping down into reality and accepting that he must get by without ever being the husband of the woman he has fallen in love with Werther’s death is recounted as a melodramatic affair, with a long letter of farewell in which he begs, like some medieval knight in armour, to be buried with the ribbons that Charlotte gave him. His exit is stage managed for maximum effect, in order to cause pain to the woman he ostensibly loved, and to her innocent husband, who was Werther’s rival for her affections. The answer to our initial question, then, as to whether Werther is a victim of love, or of society, is that he is indeed the victim of love, but his love is mainly love for himself. References Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von. The Sorrows of Young Werther. First published in German in 1774. (Quoted here in English). Read More