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June 21–September 10

Summary: June 21–July 6

Werther lives a little over a mile from Charlotte’s home, and he visits her daily, unable to bear being apart from her. He enthusiastically roughhouses with Charlotte’s siblings and tells them stories. One day, he accompanies her on a visit to the aging vicar. The clergyman’s beautiful daughter, Frederica, and her boyfriend, Herr Schmidt, join them. Schmidt becomes jealous of the attention Werther pays to Frederica and turns gloomy and irritable. Werther berates Schmidt for his behavior, in turn drawing Charlotte’s reproof that he should rein in his overactive sensitivity. On another occasion, Werther impulsively picks up Charlotte’s little sister, Jane, and gives her a big kiss on the cheek, frightening her and making her cry. Charlotte gently reprimands Werther and takes Jane to the fountain, where she tells the child that the miraculous water will wash off the impurities from contact with Werther’s beard. Werther takes no offense, admiring Charlotte’s creativity.

Summary: July 8–July 26

Werther, Charlotte, and several friends gather in town. Before the ladies’ carriage departs, Werther stands apart from the others, gazing at Charlotte, desperate to make eye contact. She only looks at two of the friends, W. Seldstadt and Andran, who are laughing and conversing. Werther realizes his feelings of rejection are childish. He complains about people asking him if he likes Charlotte. The question flusters him because in his mind, to know her is to worship her. 

Werther searches for evidence of Charlotte’s reciprocal feelings for him, and when she talks affectionately of her fiancé, he feels insecure. The slightest inadvertent contact—her touch, her breath—overwhelms Werther. The little tunes Charlotte plays on the piano to lighten her mood relieve the suicidal thoughts Werther sometimes harbors over her engagement to Albert. Werther declines Wilhelm’s proposal of a job to be an attaché to the ambassador. Werther admits he has neglected his drawing to the extent that his technique has worsened. He doesn’t trust himself to complete his portrait of Charlotte beyond a sketch of her profile. Charlotte asks Werther to do odd jobs for their family, which he relishes as excuses to pay her a visit. He compares her attraction for him to the magnetic field of a lodestone.

Summary: July 30–August 12

Albert arrives in Walheim permanently, and Werther likes and respects him. In temperament they are opposites, Albert coolheaded and Werther impetuous, but they form a friendship around their shared interests in Charlotte and the children. Werther recognizes the need to end his intense attachment to Charlotte now that Albert is on the scene. Wilhelm presents two choices: Pursue Charlotte to the fulfillment of your hopes or accept her unavailability before it destroys you. Werther pictures Wilhelm’s second choice as amputating an arm to save a life or a mercy killing in the case of a terminal illness. 

Albert treats Werther not as a competitor but as a good friend and part of the family. One day while the two are conversing in Albert’s office, Werther puts Albert’s unloaded pistol to his forehead, horrifying Albert. They debate the morality of suicide, with Albert calling the act a premeditated crime or an act of insanity and Werther arguing for exigent circumstances. Werther uses the case of a woman who drowned herself when abandoned by her lover by way of analogy that suicide is a mortal infirmity of the mind like a terminal illness. He makes a case for suicide as a remedy for existential despair beyond the limits of what the rational mind can process.

Summary: August 15–September 10

Werther continues his regular visits to Charlotte and the children. He has become part of the household, a favorite of the children, who eagerly request his storytelling, monitoring his narrative details to ensure that he stays true to his original. With Charlotte’s approaching marriage, the life Werther shares with her will end, and the impending loss moves him increasingly to despair of future happiness. On his solitary walks, he dimly recalls the ecstatic feeling he experienced in the spring of being one with a beneficent God’s creation, yet now he perceives the universe as a devouring monster. 

For his birthday on August 28, Albert and Charlotte give him a set of Homer volumes for his walks and a pink ribbon that Charlotte wore the first time Werther met her. Werther spends his days and nights dreaming of Charlotte and sees no end to his misery except death. He resolves to leave Walheim. On September 10, Werther makes what he intends to be his last visit to Albert and Charlotte. Charlotte relives her mother’s last moments, and asks Werther if he thinks they will know one another after death. She and Albert tearfully pledge to honor her dying wish that they should be happy together in marriage. Werther leaves without telling them that he won’t be back for the foreseeable future.

Analysis: June 21–September 10

Once Werther declares that the world means nothing to him, self-delusion is the only aspect of his emotions that he is still able to control. If Charlotte is aware of Werther’s love for her, he does not note it in his letters. At this point it is possible that his love for her matters more to him than her feelings for him. He either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care about others’ responses to his inappropriate behavior towards Charlotte’s siblings and Frederica, and if Charlotte ever explicitly states that his behavior towards her is inappropriate because of her engagement to Albert, he does not note that either. He pushes this knowledge out of his consciousness so he can indulge himself in the desperate, heady joy of being in love, no matter the cost to his mental well-being.

The longer Werther allows himself to wallow in his feelings for Charlotte and prioritize time with her above all else, the more unstable he becomes. He still possesses enough self-awareness to castigate himself for his own childishness but lacks the maturity to prevent himself from falling prey to the reactions that he deems childish. Werther’s comparison of his attraction to Charlotte to a magnetic field shows he not only feels powerless to refrain from seeking her company again and again, but that he has absolved himself of any responsibility for his obsessive behavior. If he believes that he is unable to control himself, then he cannot possibly blame himself. It is a convenient rationale for someone whose romantic feelings have taken over every aspect of his life.

Albert’s return to Walheim does not immediately signal catastrophe for Werther because their newfound affinity for one another diffuses the romantic tension between Werther and Charlotte. Albert is so respectable and pleasant that it is impossible for Werther to dislike him, and Albert’s confidence in himself and in the loyalty of his fiancée allow him to welcome Werther into their lives without making Werther feel like a third wheel. Albert provides a sounding board for Werther much the same way that Wilhelm does. Their discussions allow Werther to maintain a veneer of rationality that also enables Albert to conclude that Werther is no threat to Albert’s relationship with Charlotte. 

As Charlotte and Albert lean into the roles they will soon take on as heads of a shared household, they treat Werther with the same regard they do Charlotte’s siblings. In some respects, their treatment infantilizes Werther. Though Werther is clearly an adult, he nonetheless falls into the role of storyteller to the children, much as a nursemaid or a spinster aunt might. In doing so, he casts himself as a eunuch of sorts, someone with whom Charlotte may trifle without alarming her betrothed. When Charlotte includes her pink ribbon in the joint birthday gift, it is an act of intimacy that doesn’t concern Albert because he doesn’t consider Werther to be a rival. The ribbon symbolizes Charlotte’s innocence and virtue as well as the chaste nature of her bond with Werther who, to her, is more of a little brother than a suitor.

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