In both “The Sorrows of Young Werther” by Goethe and Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” the title characters commit suicide. In the following I will compare these two pieces under the aspect of how the authors handled the suicide. First of all, it is important to say that in both writings the suicide is romanticised because it is portrayed as the last way out of a miserable situation. Instead of kill-ing oneself in times of hardship, one should try to find a solution that does not in-volve death. Werther already hints to his suicide throughout the book. This shows that he is not opposed to suicide and might even find it a noble thing to do. Especially Albert, the fiancé of Werther’s love interest, tries to show him that suicide is not a good way to end one’s life. Giving different opinions about suicide and showing the ambiguity of the topic makes it crucial for people to question their own belief. …show more content…
But what was probably even more disturbing were the many suicides by other young men in similar situations that felt encouraged by the book. In “Romeo and Juliet” Juliet is forced to marry Paris by her parents. She then meets Romeo and falls in love with him. They marry and Juliet can thus not be married to Paris. However, she cannot tell her parents about it for the two families are in a feud. The only solution Juliet sees to get out of this situation, in which she feels trapped by her parents as well as by social standards, is to fake her