The Sorrows of Young Werther Analysis
The Sorrows of Young Werther was an extraordinary reading and eye opening experience because it changed the world around me and help me value my life's potential. One of the points that really affected me throughout this reading was the conversation about the ethics of suicide. Another point that struck me was Charlotte talking about the moonlight. Some of the characters also affected me as well like, the flower seeker and the peasant lad. My last point is whose fault is it for Werthers demise I just have to touch on this because this is such an interesting point because a lot of people have different views. The ending of the novel is a logical conclusion based on Goethe’s use of foreshadowing.
In the letter of May 22, Werther foreshadows to suicide, by saying “the sweet feeling of the liberty, and knows that he can quit his prison whenever he likes.”- (Goethe. Pg 6) He has a conversation with Albert about The ethics of suicide. Werther is saying that suicide is someone's passion to do so because reasoning has failed to satisfy. Albert is debating that no one capable of a larger view of life can be excused for committing suicide. I agree with both of them on Werther’s side it's your life if you want to end it and that is your desire even with help, by all means release yourself from the prison of life. Albert has a good point of view as well he says “because a man under the influence of violent passion loses all power of reflection, and
In the final stanza, he makes the reader sad as he assumes the inevitable will happen and she will die. He expresses this through metaphors such as a “black figure in her white cave”, which is a reference to the bright white hospital rooms and although he is the black figure he thinks she just sees a shadow which could be the grim reaper or even death himself, coming to end her journey. No one wants to deal with the sorrow of losing a loved one for good, as
In the beginning of the novel, Night Wiesel really did quite grasp what was going one, when he first heard of the troops coming he never imagined what the outcome of their visit would be. Wiesel was like most children at his age, very naive and looked at the world with a sense of wonder and merriment. But when that dreadful day came and him and his family were taken from their home, he left his bed his house and his innocence. At first Wiesel thought the armed guards were trying to protect them from the war, but as he spent more time in the camps and socialized with the other Jews he then saw what was truly going on.(30). It was as if his whole world came crashing down and he did not know how to take it. He had to grow up fast because that was
Through human suffering, numbness, and Elie’s actions, Night shows that even though the main character Elie has been through these tragic experiences of the Holocaust, he tells his story accurately with strong verbal image descriptions. Weisel demonstrates the atrocities of the Holocaust through his descriptions of how he saw human suffering. In the book, Night, the author uses a lack of emotion with the character Elie to demonstrate the numb feelings of the Holocaust. Also in the book, Elie’s actions toward other characters reflect greatly throughout the whole story.
"Suicide, what a terrible concept. There are two types of suicide: physical, and theoretical. Physical suicide is the more commonly heard type of suicide. It entails the person actually, physically killing himself or herself. On the other hand, theoretical suicide is when the person does something that will, in turn, get him or her killed. For example, in “All About Suicide” by Luisa Valenzuela, Ismael, a man that works at a minister’s office, murders the minister, a high-ranking public official. Ismael has been forced to be quiet by the government; therefore he lashes out by killing the minister so that he can reveal the truth about the government. In doing this, Ismael technically “kills himself” because he knows the government
The book, Lament For a Son, written by Nicholas Wolterstorff talks about his pain and grief after losing his 25-year-old son (Joy, 2009). His son died while on a mountain-climbing expedition. Dr. Wolterstorff has several books published during his career as a philosophical theology professor in Yale Divinity. However, he wrote Lament for a Son with a different journal style since it is a personal thing for him. The book is similar to a journal as he narrates the events that happened before and after his son’s death. The emotions expressed in the book are common among people who lose close relatives. What matters is how a person handles the issue. Kubler-Ross invented the five stages of grief; denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptancethat explain the escalation of grief when stricken by bad news (Axelrod, 2004). The paper looks into the book and its relation to the five stages of grief.
The documentary We Were Children, directed by Timothy Wolochatiuk, followed two survivor’s stories of what really happened in the Residential schools in Canada. The stories that have been told, sheds light into the acts that took place and how it still has affected the survivors today. These schools have stripped away the children’s identity and their culture, leaving behind their traditional heritage.
Hamlet's to be or not to be soliloquy, illuminates something that crosses every human's mind, even if only for a split second; to live or die, fight or cry. Sometimes the world can get to a person, and when allowed to manifest, it can be hurtful. Suicide is a choice when things get tough, but a cowardly act. Life is precious and the only way to succeed must be to be in it; therefore, living. Suicide doesn't terminate a problem, but hides it. People will be judged sooner or later by the powers that be.
Based on the play of Hamlet by William Shakespeare, suicide is the most prevalent and important themes in Hamlet. Hamlet always asks himself for the reason to stay alive. Even though he always thinks that there is no reason for him to stay alive, however he always chooses to stay. The first reason Hamlet seems to contemplate suicide is because his life is contaminated by sins and revenge. The other reason he is thinking about suicide is because he is young and immature. Young adults usually look for escapes when they become angry with things. There are many instances where Hamlet contemplating suicide and he treats the idea of suicide morally, religiously, and aesthetically, with particular attention to Hamlet’s two important statements about suicide: the “O, that this too too solid flesh would melt” soliloquy (I.ii.129–158) and the “To be, or not to be” soliloquy (III.i.56–88).
“Once upon a time there was a wife and mother one too many times” (Godwin 39). This short story begins with the famous opening, once upon a time, which foreshadows that the story line will be similar to a fairy tale. It raises expectations for the story that all will be magical and end happily. A typical modern-day fairy tale is that of a distressed character who overcomes an obstacle, falls in love with prince charming, and they ride off into the sunset; living happily ever after never to be heard from again. Godwin however, puts an unexpected twist on “A Sorrowful Woman”. This short story is a tale about what can happen when everyday roles take over our identity. Ultimately, this short story challenges societal expectations of marriage
The idea of universalizability strongly suits this case. To universalize the patient’s individual maxim, we would see that most if not all will find suicide morally justifiable because everyone at times may feel depressed. At this point, we look at the duty to preserve life at all costs, and find we cannot universalize the patient’s maxim. Kant was tempted with this maxim, but his will finds it immoral. He once said, “I still have strength enough to take my life, but I hold this to be immoral. Whoever deprives himself of life is a beast…” The extreme idea of suicide also looks at self-love. She wants to feel better, so she thinks death will accomplish this. The problem here is with death, you don’t feel anything anymore. Another angle on this case looks at the patient using the
When your back is against a wall and it seems that all hope is lost, do not give up. Because if you choose suicide, you will never live to see it get worse, however, you also pass up the chance to see life get better. Suicide is an important, recurring theme in William Shakespeare's, Hamlet, and it is a topic that Hamlet contemplates quite often throughout the play. Hamlet often goes back and forth between to be or not to be, but continues to believe that people although capable of suicide, choose to live. Hamlet is adamant that the unknown, the inconclusiveness of nobility, along with the sin attached to suicide is what ultimately keeps people from taking their own lives.
Suicide, to Durkheim, is “an exaggerated form of ordinary practices,” and they arise from “comparable states of mind” in people, with the only difference between daily and suicidal behavior being the “chance of death” (Durkheim 20-21). Durkheim spends the majority of the work dissecting the “apparent motives” for suicide (Durkheim 151) and observing the varieties of suicide, a feat made difficult by the inaccurate reporting and misunderstandings of investigators. Thus, to understand the types of suicide, we must “reverse the order of our research” for “There can only be as many different types of suicide as there are differences in the causes from which they derive,” (Durkheim 149). He says “if they were all found to have the same essential characteristics, they would be grouped in one class” but “observations that we would need to have are more or less impossible obtain” (Durkheim
In the novel, Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse, the main character, the Steppenwolf, considers committing suicide. He tries to justify taking his life with religious and philosophical rationales, but in the argument he finds that his life is worth living and suicide not a logical option. Sadly though, the novel provides little evidence beyond the Steppenwolf's own feelings as to why he cannot commit suicide. It is the intent of this paper, with some religious and philosophical references, to shed light on the reasoning behind the Steppenwolf's decision to live. The issue of suicide has been addressed throughout history by many critics. Many try to justify taking one's own life, but for different
Throughout this essay, we will be looking a Durkheim’s analysis of suicide and whether his ideas on suicide were right in his time, and whether they are still relevant in today’s society. Emile Durkheim described ‘suicide’ as a term “applied to any death which is the direct or indirect result of a positive or negative act accomplished by the victim himself, which he knows will produce this result” (Durkheim, Suicide: a Study in Sociology, originally published 1897, 1970). Positive acts were acts that were undertaking with the intention to produce death. Negative acts were actually the distinct lack of survival acts undertaken, with the knowledge that without these acts, death would be the result. As far as Durkheim was concerned, although suicide itself is a very individual act, the reasoning behind suicide was due to predominantly social factors (Durkheim 1970, p44). Suicide was sociological, not psychological. His research was based not on the personality traits of those who had committed suicide, but instead at the suicide rates of different countries compared to the social factors that link the countries together (Durkheim 1970, p40).
In The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe, Lotte has been seen as responsible for Werther’s fate. There are many ways through which Lotte’s behavior around Werther fuels his romantic obsession with her. Lotte continuously shows inappropriate affections towards Werther throughout the novel. Examples which show her affection for him are dancing the Waltz, the gift of the pink ribbon, and the bird beak kissing incident. Lotte leads Werther to believe she loves him by touching his hands, gazing at him, calling him “dear,” she entices him as well by requesting that he come to visit with her daily. Readers can also see Lotte’s improper affections towards him when she does not respond to Albert’s request that she stop seeing