From the beginning of The Sorrows of Young Werther, Werther emphasizes his connection to nature to embellish the tragically creative personality he presents to Wilhelm. As his infatuation with Charlotte grows and he laments the unfairness and misfortune of his situation, his opinions become distorted; we see his self-perceived affinity with Nature become more twisted and less peaceful. A turning point in this transformation can be seen in his August 18 entry; For him, nature is no longer sublime and beautiful, but simply sublime and full of the potential for destruction: Werther finds himself paralyzed by thoughts of his own destructive forces. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Werther is describing the anguish of his unrequited love for Charlotte, which has turned his previous love for Nature into torment. The extent of his torment is described in the form of a vision: it is as if a curtain had been drawn before my eyes, alluding to a Werther transformed by the epiphany, who expects to feel attachment and unity with Nature, but instead of prospects of eternal life, the abyss of an ever-open tomb yawned before me. The image of a curtain being pulled aside to reveal a Truth regarding the prospects of eternal life has strongly religious connotations; despite its imprecision, this phrase conveys a wealth of images linked to ineffable experiences as in biblical stories of religious epiphanies; tents are prominent in Old Testament descriptions of the ark and the Holy of Holies---where a tent encloses the heavenly presence. Such a religious tone indicates that Werther views this revelation with the fervor of a prophet, willing to let it determine his destiny. Exaggerated imagery dominates the rest of the paragraph: Werther finds himself overshadowed by storms, torrents, the ocean, time, and Nature, the all-encompassing monster. These parallel his fear of his own destructive power: that to some extent he too devours everything and could destroy a world in the same way that an earthquake swallows a village. Werther finds himself facing the abyss of an ever-open tomb. , which for Werther symbolizes the fragility of his life: being able to fall into the abyss as easily as he falls into a hole in the ground. While a tomb is a clear connection between this world and the next, an abyss is an entirely different category. footnote{Abyss, in its original sense, means an otherworldly pit, in contrast to the weaker modern connotation.} That Werther can magnify each other gives this paragraph a fantastic flavor: in Werther's dreams and visions a earthly tomb becomes otherworldly and grows in grandeur as he interprets it. Werther continues with this image of tenuous life: Can we say of something that it is when everything passes? Werther's question is more clearly emphatic in German: Kannst du sagen: Das ist! from alles vor ubergeht? One can imagine Werther standing on the edge of his abyss as he screams these words to the turbulent gray sky, in a kind of stereotypical, angst-filled soliloquy that he would, no doubt, love to give. The image of blindly consuming forces reinforces this image, as Werther explains. about the ephemerality of existence: we can say about something other than what it is when everything passes - when time, with the speed of a storm, drags all things forward - and our transitory existence, pushed by the torrent, is swallowed by the waves or crashing against the rocks? Although Werther changes the metaphors of this three times in the course of the sentence.