31 pages • 1 hour read
George EliotThe Lifted Veil
Fiction | Novella | Adult | Published in 1859A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Character Analysis
Latimer
As the protagonist of The Lifted Veil, Latimer writes the story of his life and his mystical experiences with a quite literal double consciousness: He speaks in the first person but has the powers of an omniscient narrator. These powers of insight and foresight, first appearing after a dangerous illness in Geneva, reveal the base and often hateful thoughts of the people closest to him and push him into a life of ever greater solitude. Latimer composes the narrative of his life because he has no work, family, or friends to serve as mementos of his life when he dies. Despite his unique insight into others, there is reason to suspect that Latimer may be an unreliable narrator; at the very least, he does not reflect on the way his own biases influence his interpretation of others’ inner characters or on the way his own behavior might contribute to the “shrinking, half-contemptuous pity” he castigates those around him for (33).
As a member of upper-class English Victorian society, Latimer grows up on his family’s estate. His mother dies when he is still young, and he never feels fully accepted by his father, who prefers his older brother, Alfred. Latimer has a poetic and idealistic nature, enjoys literature and philosophy, and pursues these interests despite the course of scientific education that his father and the phrenologist Mr. Letherall impose upon him. His habits isolate him from society even before he develops insight and foresight, but he does makes one friend while in Geneva, the medical student Charles Meunier.
Latimer is initially excited about his premonitions, believing them to be the precursors of the poetical ability he has always dreamed of possessing (7). However, he quickly comes to resent his power of insight, as it shows to him the false public personas that other people adopt in order to be polite. He does not speak to anyone of his powers for fear that they will question his sanity and further ostracize him. His love for Bertha Grant arises from his inability to perceive her innermost thoughts and emotions: Latimer values the mystery inherent in people and in nature and desires not to know so much of other people’s inner lives.
Though Latimer experiences a vision of Bertha as his cruel and demeaning wife, he cannot resist pursuing his present desire for her. Believing his power of foresight to be unchangeable, he wishes to experience what happiness he can in the present before the vision becomes true. Following their marriage, Latimer’s insight extends to Bertha as well, and the two live separate lives while still married, with Latimer growing increasingly depressed and apathetic. Mrs. Archer’s proclamation that Bertha intends to poison Latimer effectively ends their marriage. Latimer lives abroad for the remainder of his life, pursuing a strictly solitary existence, until the vision of his death comes to pass.
Latimer’s Father and Brother
Latimer’s father is a banker and “a firm, unbending, intensely orderly man” (5). He prefers Alfred to Latimer based on Alfred’s charming and sociable personality. He resents Latimer’s more poetic and creative nature and does not encourage him to do anything with his life but accept his inheritance and act with decorum in society. Following Alfred's death, Latimer’s father begins to show more interest in Latimer as the heir to the family’s estate and wealth. Latimer’s father begins as an antagonist, particularly in relation to Latimer’s education, but by the end of the novella has come to accept his son.
Alfred, Latimer’s brother, is often at odds with Latimer and does not take him seriously. Alfred is handsome, charming, and fulfills the expected social role of eldest son. Alfred displays “the superficial kindness of a good-humored, self-satisfied nature” (14), which deeply irks Latimer. The two are rivals for the affections of Bertha, whom Alfred is engaged to before his untimely death during a hunting accident.
Charles Meunier
Meunier is an orphan and poor, but a medical prodigy. He meets Latimer in Geneva, and the two form a friendship based on their shared exclusion from the society of the other boys studying at the city. As a doctor, Meunier is one of the primary vehicles for the novella’s exploration of the science of consciousness.
Bertha Grant
As the main antagonist in The Lifted Veil, Bertha Grant is a static character Eliot uses to explore the gendered nature of marriage, love, and independence within Victorian society. Bertha is an orphan adopted by her aunt, Mrs. Filmore. She has sharp features and blond hair, and she often wears dresses adorned with leaves, enhancing the sylph-like appearance that Latimer ascribes to her.
Bertha often ridicules Latimer's poetic nature and is “unimaginative, prematurely cynical, remaining critical and unmoved in the most impressive scene” (15). Her personality is directly opposed to Latimer’s, yet she still interests him, primarily because his powers of insight fail to penetrate her thoughts until after their marriage. Bertha acts as the main motivation for Latimer’s actions in The Lifted Veil, as he bases his present and future life solely on Bertha’s evaluation of him.
Bertha claims to want to marry a man she doesn’t admire, as this allows her to keep her emotions to herself and retain her independence (26). Bertha’s coldness, as Latimer describes it, is her way of asserting her independent identity in marriage—an institution that in the Victorian era legally merged a woman’s existence with that of her husband. She suspects Latimer’s powers of double consciousness and becomes increasingly resentful of him, eventually resolving to poison him as a way to keep her inner life forever private. Her plan is exposed by her maid, Mrs. Archer, and Bertha spends the remainder of her life separated from her husband. Her name possibly alludes to Bertha Mason, a similarly resented wife who appears in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (1847).
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