The book report of The sorrows
The sorrows of young Werther was written by Goethe and published in 1774.According to the novel, a young man called Werther falls in love with Charlotte, who has already had an engagement with Albert. Werther is very miserable .And it is not only the hopeless love but also the secular perspective that finally drives him mad and leads to his death.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, born in 1749 in Frankfurt and died in 1832 .He is a ideologist、writer and scientist .It is the sorrow of young Werther that makes him more popular than ever. The story is based on the true experience of Goethe. During the internship in the supreme court of Wetzlar, Goethe met the girl, Charlotte, who has the same name as the heroine of the novel. She has engaged herself to Kestner and considered Werther as one of Goethe. So he left her. Then he met another girl, the daughter of privy counselor. And Charlotte in the novel is a mixture of the two girls depending on the impression they left on Goethe. Though Werther is a character based on Goethe himself, they have different endings. The suicide ending is based on his colleague, Jerusalem, who committed suicide by using the pistol borrowed from Kestner. It is said that it only took four weeks to finish this novel in order to prevent him from committing suicide because of this hopeless love.
Instead of simply narrating a story by others, the sorrows of young Werther is written as the letters sending to his friend, Willian, and only the last part including Werther's final ending is narrated by the author. In this way, it seems to be spoken by Werther himself and readers can be easily involved by his emotion. In those letters, there are many description of environment, which implies the change of his mood. The time When Werther came to the solitude is in May that is full of vigor, then when Werther leaves that place with his painful heart and later returns there, it is in Autumn, the season that many plants begin to be withered and bare . It is on a windy and snowy winter that Werther finally commits suicide. The change of season is in accordance with the change of Werther’s mood: First he goes there as a nature lover, then becomes miserable because of the hopeless love, and finally becomes despairing (Huihong Huang, 2009).
Werther is the protagonist of this novel. He was born in a wealthy middle-class family. He loves nature and freedom: “Solitude in this terrestrial paradise is a genial balm to my mind, and the young spring cheers with its bounteous promises my oftentimes misgiving heart. Every tree, every bush, is full of flowers; and one might wish himself transformed into a butterfly, to float about in this ocean of perfume, and find his whole existence in it.”(Goethe, 1774) The love towards nature is exactly opposite to the hatred of upper-class people that look down upon him. In 1750s, the situation in Germany is terrible. It is economically backward. And there still exited feudal hierarchy. Every nobility can look down upon people living in the lower class. People’s hearts and thoughts need to be free, but because of their weakness, they just stay negatively. But Werther also dislikes those vulgar ordinary people, so he felt lonely and that might be one of the reasons that he loves Charlotte so deeply. He loves Charlotte and he is also guilty about making Charlotte and Albert trouble. This character not only shows young Goethe ‘s world view 、social view aesthetics and religious view, but also highlights ideality of rising bourgeois at the time of Germany Sturm und drang (Liu Wei , 2007). Germany Sturm und drang happened. It overcame the adverse effects brought by enlightenment, which restrained personal feeling, and advocated liberation of humanity, considered everyone as a individual （Liu Wei ，2007）.Goethe is one of the representatives of Germany Sturm und drang , so The sorrows of young Werther shows some of his thought about it. Though Werther realizes the essence of society and his life, he does not have enough power to fright against them. As a result, he become despairing.
Werther’s hopeless love and his miserable life reflect the Social status at that time. Firstly, youth confusion is a common topic. And this is the reason why The sorrows of young Werther is so popular among people. Like many young people, Werther is not satisfied with his situation and wants to chase the thing he wants, and becomes more successful on his own (Ye Jun, 2009). Secondly, concept of love that has more freedom to love is a hope of others, which implies that marriage is not liberal. Though Werther’s love is miserable, Werther explores himself constantly and has a better understanding on the social status. Thirdly, feudal hierarchy shows the inequality among people who lives in different social classes. It shows a social tragedy. And people in the low class were oppressed by nobility. Finally, suicide choice is thought-provoking. In the novel, Werther once discussed with Albert about suicide:“ Everyone has his limit, they can only tolerate happiness、painstaking and pain within limit, that is to say ,if those thing is over the limit, they cannot bear them anymore. It is nothing to do with fortitude or weakness. And we should consider suicides as cowards as we should never call a man died of a fever as coward.”（Goethe,1774）From the perspective of Goethe，Werther is not coward but died for his love. The suicide of Werther is a way for him to stick to his love and makes his life more meaningful. It is the last fright for Werther against the rotten society. The death of Werther sounded the alarm for the ordinary people and stimulates them to fright with the society bravely like Werther.
After The sorrows of young Werther was published in 1774, it became a heated topic and spread widely. Then, many replications came out, The happiness of young Werther included. The happiness of Werther was written by Nicolet in1776, in which he had changed the ending written by Goethe into a happy ending that Werther finally wins Charlotte’s heart and gains Albert’s forgiveness. Though the happy ending was not good enough from the perspective of other writers like Goethe. However, at that time, many people would buy both of The sorrows of young Werther as well as T The happiness of young Werther. Besides, it is said that The happiness of Werther decreased the rate of suicide, becoming a consolation of people. Werther‘s thoughts and behaviors are totally different from those traditional thoughts and behaviors, so some people cannot accept it. However, it arouses the same thought among the ordinary people especially the young people. The influence of this book is very huge and amazing because it was published at the right time (Goethe, ---).
Nowadays, it is still popular with young people. In my opinion, it is worth reading. And after reading it I sure you will have a better understanding of freedom and love. Also you can know more about the society at that time and get close to the thought of the famous writer, Goethe.
References
[1] Goethe .The sorrows of young Werthe, 1774
[2]Liu Wei. Journal of Higher Correspondence Education (Philosophy and Social Sciences), 2007
[3]Ye Jun. Tongji University Journal Social Science Section, 2009
[4]Huihong Huang. Education of literature, 2009
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