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Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.

Reason versus Emotion

With the exception of Charlotte, every major character in The Sorrows of Young Werther is guided either principally by intellect or mainly by emotions. Wilhelm and Albert belong to the intellect and reason camp, while Werther and the young peasant man who falls in love with his mistress are both ruled by their feelings. Charlotte indulges in occasional flights of fancy, but her responsibilities to her siblings and commitment to her fiancé ground her and allow her to rein in her more extreme emotions. 

Werther knows that in the past his emotions were his downfall, and as soon as he meets Charlotte he is lost to them. Even in the opening scenes, when Werther’s mood is fairly calm and contented, he is merely drifting along on a tide of mildly pleasant emotions until a more extreme passion comes along and swallows up his life. When Werther meets the young peasant man, the man’s emotions, most notably his evident love for his widowed mistress, attract Werther like a moth to a flame. 

Wilhelm’s clearheaded advice to Werther indicates he is vastly more sensible and practical than his correspondent, and he counsels Werther against acting on impulse and raw emotions. Charlotte also advises Werther to be sensible, and the rage in Werther’s reaction suggests that he is incapable of doing so. 

Misunderstandings and Tensions Among the Social Classes

Werther’s status as a member of the upper-middle-class both benefits him and causes serious complications in his life. He appears to have plenty of money, and he received an excellent education. These advantages allow him to refrain from working for much of the novel and to obtain an exceptional position at court as soon as he chooses to end his life of leisure. He can also thank his education for his artistic training, his appreciation of literature, and his writing skills, all of which give him pleasure. 

Before Werther falls in love, he appears to associate mostly with working-class people. He enjoys their company because he imagines their lives as simple and worry-free. Also, they like and respect him, which he finds gratifying. However, Werther’s money, education, and sense of entitlement have caused him to develop blind spots when it comes to the working poor. Their lives are not idyllic. They work hard for little money, and they encounter misfortunes. They fall in love with the wrong people and end up heartbroken, unemployed, mentally unstable, and occasionally angry and desperate enough to commit rape and murder.

Werther’s misadventures among the nobility at court also result from his social class. Since he is rich, intelligent, cultured and well-educated, he believes he is equal to or better than the noblemen and ladies he meets. This causes him to misjudge the aristocrats he likes, and to treat those to whom he feels superior with disdain, a grave mistake that results in his scandal and subsequent ostracism.

The Power of the Natural World

Werther loves the outdoors, and when he is indoors, writing to Wilhelm, he loves to describe natural beauty. He appears to believe that he was born with a special sensitivity, or gift, for appreciating nature on a far deeper, more spiritual level than most people. Since Werther is a primarily emotional being and very self-involved, his descriptions of nature always reflect his personal feelings. The natural world is the one place where Werther can find peace, and he often seeks it out in order to calm himself and rein in his more disquieting feelings.

When Goethe first wrote this book, in his early twenties, he was part of the German “storm and stress” school of literature and musical composition, which celebrated extreme emotions, individualism, and artworks expressed in purely subjective rather than objective terms. Werther’s descriptions of natural beauty reflected this literary movement, and the extreme weather during the ball and leading up to Werther’s death parallel the extreme emotions that Werther is feeling.

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