Epistolary Novels the \"Narrative Therapy\"

Epistolary Novels

The "narrative therapy" was developed by modern psychology as a new tool using one of the oldest habits of the civilized world: letter writing. In the case of literature, "the healing power of art" shifted positions form a catch phrase to a true meaning. The narrative psychotherapy is a relatively new filed of research in psychotherapy that developed scientifically what literature already presented empirically as a form of therapy. Even if presenting the reader with fictional letters, the epistolary novels of the seventeenth and eighteenth century already suggested that letter writing had a therapy like effect on their fictional authors. The letter writing would act like a catharsis in the cases of the letter writer characters in epistolary novels, even if it would not prevent them from ending up in committing suicide.

In his study entitled the Epistolary Novel, Joe Bray emphasizes that he intends to regard this type of novel as "fundamental to the novel's development in increasingly sophisticated ways of representing individual psychology" (the Epistolary Novel, 2). Today they are considered the precursors of the psychological novel.

An early example of psychotherapy through real letters is that of the world renowned quantum physicist Wolfgang Pauli and the psychiatrist, Karl Jung. The two kept a correspondence over more than two decades. The dilemma of the twentieth century scientist, the ethical problems that arose every step of the way and his own personal dilemmas and traumas, led to the physician seeking professional guidance beyond the cold rationale of scientific methods. His correspondence with Jung helped him explore deeper into his own subconscious, reaching into the world of archetypes. His letters and their response of the psychiatrist succeeded to make him come out of the tower of science he isolated himself in. Pauli was born at the beginning of a century that was to bring dramatic changes in all fields of science, including that dealing with the human mind. From his correspondence with Jung, Pauli benefitted from the latter's expertise as a scientist as well as that of a psychiatrist exploring new methods and treatments in the field of psychoanalysis.

The Sorrows of Young Werther is one of the most renowned novels ever written in the epistolary form that precedes the breakthroughs made in psychotherapy in the twentieth century. The novel is partly autobiographical. It looks like a catharsis for the author himself as well as for the fictional author of the letters: the young Werther. Wilhelm, the recipient of these letters speaks in the novel only through Werther's references to the latter's advices, suggestions and encouragements.

Goethe's novel is written in the sense of the work of a clinician who asked his or her patient to write down his every day experiences and dreams, in the form of a diary. Goethe explained that even if the names and the letters themselves are fictitious, the reactions, thoughts and experiences are taken from real persons (including himself). Being twenty-four when he wrote the book, Goethe used mainly his own experiences as well as those of a close friend who committed suicide because of a tragic love affair. The book certainly did have a strong impact on contemporary as well as on future audiences that were able to identify themselves with at least one particular aspect of Werther's life.

The reader is presented with a young man who seems to lie down on a psychotherapist's sofa and recollect his recent memories from a vacation he spent in the countryside.

Werther's friend, the receiver of his letters, seems to approve and encourage his idea of passing time away from the madding crowd, enjoying the new environment and avoiding tormenting thoughts, as much as possible. The letter Werther is writing on the 14th of May is showing that Wilhelm is not only very close to him, but that he also knows Werther very well: "My friend, need I tell you all this, you, whom I have so often burdened with the sight of my transitions from grief to excessive joy, from sweet melancholy to fatal passion. I treat my poor heart, moreover, as though it were a sick child, and satisfy all its desires. Do not tell this to anyone; there are those who would strongly disapprove" (Wain, the Oxford Library of Short Novels, Vol 1, Goethe, the Sorrwos of Young Werther, 6).

At the beginning, Werther's letters alternate in outbursts of joy and deep moments of sadness. He is often in a contemplative or a deeply meditative mood. Some other time, he is observing people around him and especially children and having a good time at it. He describes children as being often attracted to him. This pleases and puzzles him at the same time, thus making him keen to find what exactly in his character appeals to children so much. This predisposition to introspection is characteristic of the activity of writing down ones experiences. The interaction with others is encouraged by the predisposition to analysis and self-analysis.

Freedman and Combs write about their own revelations in the field of therapy through tales telling due to Erickson's "teaching tales." Erickson's solution for therapy was aimed at "expanding and enriching people's stories about themselves" (Narrative Therapy, 10).

Werther's letters are converging to a point where he seems to be eager to expand his field of knowing himself through his interactions with others and his response to them. In this case, he is having a dialogue with himself. In other cases, the dialogue simulates a discussion with Wilhelm, with Werther evoking possible answers his firend would give him to his observations and conclusions. As he is advancing in his letter writing to his friend, Werther keeps reminding him and maybe himself that he is writing to a person who knows him better than most others. The hand who writes these letters is belonging to the extremely sensitive nature of an artist. This added a new dimension to his way of processing everything. For example, when he describes his encounter with a highly emotional scene in the village of Wahlheim, he succeeds in communicating exactly what he felt at that particular moment. His words are simple, but as powerful as his hands in depicting it.

Werther's observations and deductions are reminding of Rousseau's Confessions, in their in depth analysis of a sensitive character's reaction to every exterior stimulus. Rousseau's "state of nature" is appealing to young Werther in the vicinity of what appears to be the less corrupt nature possible: children growing up surrounded by nature.

The 16 the of June comes with a letter that announces a crossroad in young Werther's life. He begins his letter by acknowledging that people usually do not write letters when they are in the heat of a passion, feeling overly happy and satisfied. The reader understands that between May 30 and June 16, the young man was completely subjugated by the events in his life and thus prevented from going on with his usual correspondence routine: "It is not easy for me to tell you, in chronological order, just how it happened, how I met such a lovely being. I am contented and happy, and therefore not a good historian" (Wain, the Oxford Library of Short Novels, Vol 1, Goethe, the Sorrwos of Young Werther, 14).

Werther needs to share the news with his best friend. At the same time, by recollecting the last days, he is sorting out through his own feelings and emotions. In the true style of romanticism, Lotte, the young girl Werther fell in love with, is the very image of beauty, simplicity, kindness, brightness and common sense at once. The lack of flaws is characteristic for the romantic period, but it is also the sign of the first impressions on a freshly seeded love. Werther himself has observed at some point in his letters that the eyes of a lover may see the object of love quite differently than others. Moreover, he is recording various episodes that seem like hints for the foolish way he allowed himself to be subjugated by an impossible love. His story of a young peasant and the woman he fell in love with is one of these. Werther comments on his immediately repressed impulse to see the object of such exulted feelings at once. He becomes aware of the difference in opinion when it comes to the same object of contemplation, therefore he decides to keep the image described by the man who loved her in mind instead of getting acquainted with the image he himself might build of the same woman. However, he cannot keep the same objective sense of analysis when it comes to his own passion for Lotte.

From the point when Werther meets Lotte, his letters will almost incessantly and obsessively speak of his feelings for her. It becomes an obsession which seems at first harmless and only natural for any young and sensitive creature. Unfortunately, as he continues to write about his spending time in the village, it becomes obvious that his admiration for Lotte will become the cause of his "sorrows." This fire will not only die out, but will turn into the destructive flames of an obsession.

Werther's descriptions of his deductions, feelings, contemplation fruits and observations are accompanied by various dialogues he has with some of the people he happened to meet in the country. Although in love and obviously preoccupied with Lotte a great deal of his time, he is also keen to go on making observations about those around him. Still in the first stages of his unreciprocated love affair, the occasion of seeing a young couple gives him the chance to express his conviction that human beings are wrong to extract the dark sides of life over the bright ones and let them govern their lives. It seems that he is briefly becoming conscious of his own faults, speaking with the voice of the therapist and not that of the patient. Discussing this opinion with a pastor's wife, he launches in a judgment of the flaws of human nature: "We human beings often complain,' I began, 'that there are so few good days and so many bad ones; but I think we are generally wrong. If our hearts were always open to enjoy the good, which God gives us every day, then we should also have enough strength to bear the evil, whenever it comes" (Wain, the Oxford Library of Short Novels, Vol 1, Goethe, the Sorrwos of Young Werther, 25). Her answer reminds of the old voice of rationality and seems to come from experience and a wise spirit: "we cannot command our dispositions" (idem).

Although Derek Steinberg put together fictional letters in his book Letters from the Clinic, they were filled with real words he recorded from real patients. Among several techniques useful in psychotherapy, he introduces the aim of "speaking" one's mind directly and spontaneously, characteristic in letter writing, as one aiming at fulfilling "a moral duty" (Steinberg, 2). Another reason for writing a letter is in Steinberg's opinion that of a useful record, because "a letter can take the form of an agreed treatment plan, an aide-memoire, an informal contract between therapist, patient and family, and the beginning of an agenda for the next meeting" (idem).

By the end of the letter where young Werther is recounting his conversation with the young couple and Lotte, his last lines trigger the alarm of suicidal thoughts. They appear to be recurrent. From his original speech, full of hope in the endless possibilities of human nature and in its force to regenerate, he abruptly falls into the abyss of a very painful memory that completely contradicts what he so passionately argued so far: "The memory of a similar scene at which I had been present completely overwhelmed me as I said these words. I raised my handkerchief to my eyes and left the company. Only the voice of Lotte, who called out to me that it was time to leave, brought me to myself. And how she scolded me on our way home for my too warm sympathy with everything, saying it would be my ruin and that I should spare myself! O. angel, for your sake I must live!" (Wain, the Oxford Library of Short Novels, Vol 1, Goethe, the Sorrwos of Young Werther, 27). All of a sudden, Lotte appears like yet another pretext for him to postpone a decision to part with life that he was not experiencing for the first time. The very fact that he allowed himself to fall in love with a girl he knew was almost engaged to be married to another man could indicate to his reader that his decision to postpone a suicidal though was deliberately temporary.

He tends to exaggerate Lotte's virtues and capabilities to sooth and alleviate the sufferings of others, seeing the healing hand of the deliverer in every contact she has with others: and when I heard Lotte say: 'Now, that will do!' (but the child went on washing herself eagerly, as though Much would help more than Little) -- I tell you, Wilhelm, never did I attend a ceremony of baptism with more reverence; and when Lotte came up the steps again, I would gladly have knelt before her, as before a prophet who has washed away with holy water the crimes of a nation (Wain, the Oxford Library of Short Novels, Vol 1, Goethe, the Sorrwos of Young Werther, 28).

As Steinberg explains in his introduction to Letters from the Clinic, the recollections of such situations and especially the recalling of one's own feelings as a reaction to them is important as a term of comparison with the observations made by others with regard to the same event, or even in comparison with one's own feelings a few days after.

The sense that Werther's description of his feelings for Lotte are reaching far beyond reality is increased when he writes his friend about the sacred nature of his attachment to her. The passions of normal human beings involve matters of the souls as much as they involve matters of the flesh. Werther believes he is physically attracted to her while at the same time confessing to his friend that "any desire is silenced in her presence" (Wain, the Oxford Library of Short Novels, Vol 1, Goethe, the Sorrwos of Young Werther, 31). Words and phrases related to suicide start to appear more often in his discourse. Lotte is still presented as the only reason he is still alive.

The next weeks Werther's letters recount indicate a lesser disposition to share his feelings. He spends more and more time under the feeling that Lotte hopelessly, irrevocably and completely possesses the focus of his attention. His friend, Wilhelm, seems to give him advice and suggestions for finding things to keep him away from the dark thoughts, but Werther does not seem to be able to follow his advice. At some point, after having made a break in writing his letters, Werther shows a brief sign of waking up from his nightmare. Although what he strove to describe so far began as a beautiful love story in the countryside, it took more and more the shape of a tragic and unreciprocated love affair. He becomes aware of his own mistakes and agrees that he was the only one to blame for having allowed himself to fall so deep in the hands of despair and depression: "My diary, which I have neglected for some time, fell into my hands today, and I am amazed how I ran into this situation with full awareness, step-by-step. How clearly I have seen my condition, yet how childishly I have acted. How clearly I still see it, and yet show no sign of improvement" (Wain, the Oxford Library of Short Novels, Vol 1, Goethe, the Sorrwos of Young Werther, 35).

When it becomes clear that Werther has decided to put an end to his life, his dialogue with Albert, Lottes fiance, reveals one of the oldest subjects of conversation in the world: the worthiness or unworthiness of the act of suicide. Albert is situated on the side of the barricade that sees suicide as the result of madness or cowardice. Of course, Albert, although trying to counterattack Werther's arguments in favour of the suicidal act, is unable to really play the part of a clinician,. Not only does he not have the proper knowledge, but due to the lack of information, he is also unable to grasp his friend's inner drama. From this moment on, Werther seems unable to sense any pleasure life could offer him. His thoughts and thus letters become filled with stories about death and he becomes trapped in the net of depression, on the verge of committing suicide. Even if he goes away, as a last attempt to avoid the source of his suffering, Lotte, he is not able to see any positive side of his existence anymore. If the first part of the novel was loaded with a great deal of exaltation and admiration for people and places, the second part is only dedicated to his desperation and disappointment with people and with himself. The people he meets are 'dreadful', 'fools', 'horrid', the places are described as 'galleys' where he is enchained. He is disappointed with the whole human race that has "so little judgment and prostitutes itself in such a vulgar way" (idem, 52).