to mSince the reply to Werther's letters are to be guessed at best, the novel soon turns into a monologue. It is as though Werther was talking to his alter ego reporting about his emotions, his sorrows.
There we have a first indication for an isolation of Werther. As an emotionally sensitive Sturm&Drang "genius", there's no-one among his friends and acquaintances who could be his equal. And Wilhelm, who's no great soul either, is not able to lead his pen pal out of his "weltschmerz", Wilhelm's suggestions solely based on pure reason are not capable of doing this. There's no place for reason, no right of existence in Werther's soul matters. His solitary existence, his loneliness is self-imposed, as he otherwise sees himself cornered by the "fatal, civic circumstances".
"When I look to the limits into which the striving and inquiring powers of man are jailed... I turn back to myself and discover a world!"
With his "over-extended ideas" his opportunities as a citizen among nobility are very narrow. But it is rather early on that he turns towards a final exit from the quarrels of life: suicide.
"And then, as limited as he is, he always keeps the sweet sense of freedom in his heart and that he can leave this jail whenever he wants to."
Suicide thus becomes the incorporation of anyone's natural right to freedom, that no noblesse or ruler can take away.
It is in this context that one needs to contemplate Werther's relation to Albert. Here Goethe depicts the storm that rages between thinkers and writers of the Enlightenment and the new, youthful force of the Sturm&Drang generation. Reason, traditional values and stability are Albert's touchstones, whereas Werther precipitates himself with intense emotion and intentionally unreflectedly (sic!) into his life. This dispute mentioned above becomes most evident at the topic of suicide.
Werther rejects all of Albert's arguments and passionately defends the right to suicide, which he deems to be an expansion of natural...