Goethe seemed to feel that modest, cheerful wifehood and motherhood were paragon states to which every man ought to strive, but which no man can really attain. Goethe's last words in Faust, Part II, which translate, "The Eternal Feminine draws us upward," express this position. ![]() Goethe's works often praise the feminine in ways that may make modern feminists uncomfortable. Just as complex is Werther's attitude toward motherhood. He alludes to Jesus Christ's order to his followers to emulate children, and writes, "Any yet, dearest friend, we treat them, who are our equals, whom we should look upon as our models, as our subjects." Werther finds complexity in the simplicity of childhood there is no doubt that he is happier on the whole in the company of children then he is moving amongst adults. His letter of Jis virtually an encomium to children. This cynicism is absent, however, after Werther meets Lotte and her eight brothers and sisters. On the one hand, in his letter of May 22, 1771, Werther sees children as the height of vanity, living happily because they are ignorant, fearing no principle but the rod and delighting in no principle but candy and toys. Werther's view of childhood appears to be ambiguous. ![]() It has the two things that seem to matter to Werther most in a family: lots of children, and an intensely loving mother figure. Her family is relatively serene, even given the early death of her mother and the abundance of mouths to feed. In search of this idealized family, he stumbles across Lotte's. He needs a family - if not his own, then another's. One of the major focal points in Werther is Werther's need to compensate for a strained home relationship. Further evidence is found in the bitter tone of the letter of May 5, 1772, when Werther mentions his mother's decision to leave the place of his birth. For example, he never contacts her directly, instead relying on Wilhelm. He never directly insults his mother, but his dislike for her is sprinkled throughout the narrative. Werther has mother trouble - there can be no doubt about it. In this light, being born bourgeois instead of noble may be Werther's greatest sorrow of all. Perhaps if he had been able to rail against the follies of the upper class as a member of privilege himself (just as he criticizes the bourgeois class from within elsewhere in the novel) he would not have fled to Wahlheim, where there were no nobles to irk him. His behavior at Count C's party confirms Werther's discomfort with either conforming to class conventions or outwardly rejecting them: he remains at the party even though he is unwelcome, and when he is unsurprisingly snubbed, he throws a tantrum and leaves. Werther's position is tricky as he writes, he realizes the advantages he himself has reaped from the class system, but when he is on the bottom of the social ladder these advantages don't amount to much. Instead, he finds himself amidst the injustices of the class system, humiliated by people whom he believes he is smarter and more talented than. The beginning of Book Two provides a startling contrast to Werther's seeming life of privilege: Werther, it appears, may have been able to stay away from Lotte after all had been accepted by high society. There is no doubt that he feels himself superior their naive charm is only virtuous because he - the idle youth with nothing at hand but time and his mother's money - says it is. He speaks from a position of privilege, and though his attitude toward the peasants is kind, it is also patronizing. ![]() Werther could not hold this opinion if he were not of a higher class than they. In fact, Werther sees the simple drama of the peasants in their naive "patriarchal" society as beautifully poetic his entire theory of art privileges a simplicity of expression that only the lower classes seem capable of. During Book One, Werther speaks of his relationship to the peasant class around Wahlheim quite fondly. In fact, Werther's snubbing in Book Two - which drives him back to Wahlheim and suicide - is only the most obvious manifestation of class assumptions in the novel. ![]() But underneath these personality-driven conflicts lies the question of class: Werther cannot stand being snubbed. First of all, his temperament is not suited to sitting around in an office all day second, he is incapable of the meticulous attention to boring details that marks the life of a Court official. Why is Werther so unhappy in his official position? One could easily cite several reasons.
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