I realized, as I read, that I had wanted the girl to turn out to be less interested in Young Werther than in her own goals and activities, and for that to be why he had to kill himself. This was not the case. In fact, the girl, Charlotte, had no goals or activities, other than nursing sick people. You never found out if she even liked Werther, because she had already promised her sick mother that she would marry some other guy, and because she was “virtuous,” meaning that Werther himself didn’t expect or want her to change her mind.
