The “Curse” of the Lifted Veil The “veil” in George Eliot’s novella “The Lifted Veil” symbolizes the boundary between the natural world and the world of the supernatural, which in this story includes the realm of the spirit and of death. The words “shroud” or “curtain” also appear throughout the story as references to the…
Tag: George Eliot
The Lifted Veil – Setting
The Victorian Era Alexandrina Victoria (1819-1901), Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (1819-1901) was born in the same year as George Eliot. Victoria’s reign lasted from 1837 until her death. Because her life span and reign came to characterize this period in history, it came to be known as the “Victorian”…
The Lifted Veil – Literary Devices
Narration ”The Lifted Veil” is written in the first person, meaning that the story is told entirely from the perspective of one individual, the main character, Latimer. “The Lifted Veil” is Eliot’s only story written in the first person. Because the reader sees the events of the story only through the eyes of the main…
The Lifted Veil – Themes
Science versus the supernatural “The Lifted Veil,” like many Gothic tales, interrogates the boundaries between scientific knowledge and the supernatural, between the rational and the irrational. This set of dichotomies is laid out in the differences between Latimer and his friend Meunier. Latimer describes their childhood friendship as an attraction of opposites, a meeting of…
The Lifted Veil – Characters
Alfred Latimer’s older brother Alfred is his opposite. Latimer describes him as ”a handsome, self-confident man of 6 and 20 a thorough contrast to my fragile, nervous, ineffectual self.” Alfred is their father’s favorite, as he embodies all that the father desires in a son. When Latimer is introduced to Bertha as a probable future…
The Lifted Veil – Summary
Latimer is the first-person narrator of ”The Lifted Veil,” as well as the main character. The story begins, as he informs the reader, exactly one month before his death. “Before that time comes,” he explains, ”I wish to use my last hours of ease and strength in telling the strange story of my experience.” The…