First-Person Fiction

This novel could not have been told in any other form than letters. Werther is such a passionate, heart-first character that I think he would have been incapable to express himself in a structured format, like say, a simple story. There is no censure in his words, no hint of pretense, for Werther did not imagine that his letters would be made public. He didn’t desire any audience to his feelings save those people to whom he wrote. In fact, though the epistolary form makes public that which was once private, we still want to avert our eyes from the letters. This is Werther in his true self; these letters are his conversations, both to himself and the people in his life. They were not meant to be read by foreign eyes and that alone makes them powerful. We feel his passion in the words; they practically pore off the pages. There is no wall surrounding his heart, no barrier between himself and the words in the letters. And what do these letters do to us as the reader? We are in conversation with Werther—a literal conversation, in fact, as these are also in response to the ones that he received. The letters themselves are an enactment of Werther’s feelings. They are also a physical form of his central anxiety—his is unable to be with Lotte, the woman who rules his very soul. Perhaps these letters are also an exercise for Werther’s attempt to conquer this anxiety—they are, after all, an obsessive form. Werther shows us the fragility, the complexity, the simple humanity of ourselves. Much as we try to deny it, we cannot separate ourselves from our feelings and emotions. If we didn’t have them, we wouldn’t be human. The human condition is personal, and nothing is more personal than a letter? We might say a diary, but is that not simply a letter to yourself? Werther is not unique in his situation. Love causes much grief and that is the consequence we all must bear. Werther understands that more than anyone, and I believe that he knew it would be the death of him. These letters are writing at its finest—intimate, vulnerable, and honest—and there is no way we can remain unchanged by them.