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September 5–December 21

Summary: September 5–September 15

Charlotte writes a love letter to Albert, who is traveling on business. However, the letter misses Albert and comes to be read by Werther. When Werther tells Charlotte he imagined the letter being written to him, she becomes very upset, and Werther realizes that he overstepped his boundaries. He replaces clothing he wore on his first dance with Charlotte with a new coat exactly like it and wonders why he doesn’t like the new coat as much. He visits Charlotte, who innocently demonstrates how a canary she has trained to kiss her will eat from her own mouth, agitating Werther with the provocative display. A few days later, he complains to Wilhelm about the chopping down of walnut trees that he loved. He explains that the old vicar whom he and Charlotte used to visit died and the new vicar’s wife found the trees a nuisance. The generations-spanning trees that once created a beautiful arbor that lifted everyone’s spirits now lie on the ground waiting to be disposed of.

Summary: October 10–October 30

Werther comments to Wilhelm that Albert doesn’t show the degree of happiness that Werther would expect being married to Charlotte. Werther discovers a new literary passion in the epic poem Ossian, a collection of purported mythic tales of conflict, joy, and grief similar to Homer’s Iliad. Werther finds resonances of his own mental states in the supercharged landscapes and tragic events. He fantasizes about himself as a heroic knight mercifully taking up his sword to set his dying soul free from the emptiness of life without Charlotte. 

A week later, an experience at Charlotte’s home forces him to face the reality of how people treat death and dying. Surrounded by the mundane artifacts of daily life—pens, papers, clothing, furniture—he overhears Charlotte and her friend discuss various acquaintances in stages of declining health, and Werther wonders if they would miss him if he were to die. Without Charlotte, he feels that he has nothing to live for. Werther longs to touch her, hold her, and embrace her, which he characterizes as a basic human instinct and a wholesome desire, like children touching everything they see. He concludes that no one ever can know what another person feels.

Summary: November 3–November 30

Werther now often goes to sleep at night hoping not to wake up and feels disappointed in the morning when he does. He understands that his malaise has no objective cause. Werther’s depression worsens until everything he formerly enjoyed holds no interest for him. Charlotte notices that he has begun drinking excessively. When she asks him to show moderation for her sake, he takes offense that she doesn’t realize that she constantly occupies his thoughts. Wilhelm advises Werther to take solace in religion, but Werther replies that God has forsaken him. 

Werther senses that Charlotte’s attitude toward him has changed. Aware of Werther’s suffering, Charlotte pities him and worries about his health. He fantasizes about kissing her but feels paralyzed with indecision. On a walk, he encounters Henry, a delusional man looking for flowers in the dead of winter in an attempt to return to happier times. Soon, Henry’s mother joins them and explains that Henry, while seemingly calm now, once spent a year chained down in an insane asylum, completely deranged. Werther, shaken by her story, gives her some money to express his sympathy. He envies Henry’s ability to create an alternate reality full of flowers. Werther’s letters to Wilhelm contain prayers to God to give him back some joy in life.

Summary: December 1–December 6

Albert knows the unfortunate Henry as a former secretary to Charlotte’s father; Henry was dismissed when he developed a crush on Charlotte and he subsequently went mad. Werther feels shaken by the parallel with his own situation. A few days later, while visiting with Charlotte and listening to her play piano, Werther fixates on her wedding ring and starts crying. Charlotte immediately begins to play his favorite melody, which has never before failed to cheer him. This time, however, he becomes agitated and tells her to stop. Charlotte takes a long look at him, tells him that he is ill, and asks him to leave and pull himself together. Werther departs the premises in a frenzy of pain. His next letter to Wilhelm two days later describes how Charlotte’s dark eyes fill his vision when his eyes are closed, like a bottomless abyss. He feels that his future seems hopeless.

Summary: The Editor to the Reader

A new narrator writes an epilogue that weaves together a forensic investigation and Werther’s own notes and letters from December 6 to his death on December 22. Werther’s deepening depression manifests as instability, anxiety, animosity, and paranoia. He pushes through mental exhaustion to continue to visit Charlotte, even though he knows that he disrupts their lives. Werther develops an antipathy toward Albert, who friends testify remains the same man Werther had enjoyed and respected from their first meeting. Werther believes that Albert has lost interest in Charlotte, that he prioritizes his other involvements over his marriage, and that he wants Werther out of their lives. 

An incident occurs that brings the tensions to a resolution. Werther learns that the young peasant man who was fired after displaying passion toward his mistress, the man for whom Werther expressed much sympathy in his September 4 letter, killed the servant who had replaced him. When Werther asks the man why he did such a thing, the man confesses that if he couldn’t marry her, no one would. Werther so identifies with the young peasant man that he composes a defense on the spot and vigorously advocates for the man’s acquittal and release. Albert sides with the judge, who rejects the argument as subverting justice and due legal process. Albert asks Charlotte to end her friendship with Werther, but she refuses to do so. Albert no longer talks about Werther with her.

Summary: December 12–December 21

Werther writes Wilhelm that he feels possessed by demons and that he wanders at night. A rapid thaw has flooded the valley, and Werther excitedly considers throwing himself into the river’s raging torrent to end his life. He makes a rational decision that the time is not yet right, however. Three days later, he writes to Wilhelm that for the first time, he fantasizes about making passionate love to Charlotte and decides it would be best if he were gone. 

The narrator comments that Werther at this point begins planning to end his life. In a December 20 letter to Wilhelm, Werther accepts Wilhelm’s proposal to come to Walheim and take Werther to his home, but he asks him to delay his arrival for two weeks. Werther ends the letter with an apology to his mother for all the trouble he has caused her and a prayer for God to bless Wilhelm. After writing the letter, Werther visits Charlotte, who tries to limit contact with him to show her solidarity with Albert. He becomes agitated when she makes it clear he is only to visit when invited. Charlotte begs him to find someone else to love so that they can maintain a friendship.

Werther writes his last letter to Charlotte, set to be delivered to her after his death. After Charlotte’s ultimatum the day before, he realized the hopelessness of their relationship and secretly resolves to kill himself. The narrator picks up the thread. Werther wraps up all of his business and, while Albert is out of town, visits Charlotte uninvited. Charlotte fails to send him away, so she asks him to read from Ossian. As they both recognize their own doomed relationship in the tragic tale, they weep, embrace, and share a passionate kiss. Suddenly ashamed, Charlotte locks herself in an adjoining room. The next day, Werther adds to his final letter to Charlotte in which he asks for her forgiveness, divulges that he has asked her father to secure a gravesite under some lime trees, and notes that religious people may not wish to be buried near him. Meanwhile, Charlotte experiences a mix of strong emotions. One night soon after, using a pistol he borrowed from Albert, Werther shoots himself in the head. He dies from his injuries the following day. At 11 that evening, laborers inter Werther’s body in a grave that he had requested, unattended by mourners or any religious ceremony.

Analysis: September 5–December 21

When Werther retreats to literature and his imagination as the only outlet for his troubled psyche, it is his final exercise in self-delusion. He has grown numb to all prior sources of pleasure, so he resorts to fantasy as a way to wrap his head around his dramatic death, a stark comparison to the dreary aftermath he encounters at Charlotte’s home. This is a pivotal reckoning for Werther, as it forces him to contemplate that not only can he never have a meaningful role in Charlotte’s life, but he may not even occupy her thoughts after his death, something that he allowed himself to believe in a more deluded state.

Charlotte’s cold entreaty for Werner to leave after her feeble attempt to cheer him at the piano exposes the true self-centeredness of her character. Unlike her clueless and cruel display with the canary, this is the first time Charlotte changes course once she crosses a line with Werther. But she expresses worry for his physical health, and selfishly asks him to rein in his behavior for her sake, not his own. Her confidence in knowing Werther will never leave her no matter how much she agitates him is less desirable if Werther’s presence causes her anguish instead of amusement. Just as the new vicar’s wife chopped down trees upon a whim, Charlotte’s whims destroyed Henry and will destroy Werther as well.

By creating a narrator called “the editor,” Goethe employs a literary device to impart Charlotte’s point of view, something that Werther’s selfishness did not allow him to consider unless it pertained directly to his ability to spend time with her. Werther’s hundreds of agitated letters to Wilhelm only describe his point of view, but as the editor’s depiction attests, Werther grew increasingly unhinged. It’s evident that Werther is far from being a reliable narrator. When it becomes clear that Charlotte does have strong feelings for Werther, it allows for the possibility that Werther might not have been crazy to suspect that she did all along, and when she locks the door, it is feasible that she does not trust her ability to control her own passion. At this point, it is clear that Werther can control neither his passion nor the selfishness that ultimately leads him to take his own life.

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