31 pages • 1 hour read
The Lifted Veil
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Chapter 2Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 2, Pages 24-31 Summary
Latimer, his family, and the Filmores complete their tour in Europe and return to their estates in England. That autumn, Bertha and Alfred announce their engagement. Despite this, Bertha continues to spend a lot of time with Latimer, who awaits the event that will break up her engagement and cause Bertha to marry him instead. In November, Latimer notices Alfred leaving the house on a hunting trip. The brothers exchange resentful and sarcastic words, with Latimer saying of his brother's stubbornness and selfishness, “This man needed no pity, no love; those fine influences would have been as little felt by him as the delicate white mist is felt by the rock it caresses” (25). While his brother is away, Latimer walks to the Filmores’ estate to go on a walk with Bertha.
During their walk, Latimer asks Bertha how she can love someone like Alfred. Bertha is amused and responds that she doesn’t love Alfred: “A little quiet contempt contributes greatly to the elegance of life” (26). Upset and forgetting his resolve to keep his powers of insight a secret, Latimer asks Bertha whether she will love him (Latimer) when they are first married. Bertha notices the strange remark and suggests that Latimer go home to rest.
At home, Latimer discovers that Alfred has died after falling from his horse while hunting. Latimer's father is devastated, and Latimer begins to empathize with his father after perceiving the severity of his father’s depression. Latimer’s father makes Latimer the heir and shows more of an interest in his son, encouraging Latimer to succeed in the family business and marry Bertha. Latimer grows closer to Bertha, causing him to continue believing in “the delicious illusion of loving Bertha, of longing and doubting and hoping that she might love me” (28). Bertha flirts with Latimer and works to convince him that she loves him. Eighteen months after Alfred’s death, Bertha and Latimer marry. They display their wealth and newfound happiness throughout the neighborhood despite Latimer’s distaste for such public displays.
On the evening of his father’s death, Latimer’s power of insight finally extends itself to Bertha. He is able to read her contempt, distrust, and hatred of him.
Chapter 2, Pages 32-43 Summary
Latimer’s insight into Bertha shows him her expectations of him as a husband, her desire to rule over his emotions and behavior, and her disappointment in his poetical and idealistic nature. As Latimer withdraws from society, their neighbors and friends begin to pity Bertha. The two grow apart, with Latimer living a solitary life and Bertha enjoying socializing with friends.
Bertha suspects Latimer’s power of insight. Latimer grows more dejected and morose, uninterested in his future as his “one ardent desire ha[s] spent itself, and impulse no longer predominated over knowledge” (33). He is grateful that his wealth and privilege allow him to continue in his marriage to Bertha without having to socialize with her.
Several years later, Latimer’s vision of married life with Bertha comes true. Bertha visits him in their library before going out and asks if she can hire a new maid and grant employment to another’s new husband. Latimer is confused by the anticlimactic nature of the vision’s fulfillment. He resolves to stay as far from the new maid, Mrs. Archer, as possible. Still, he notices the odd relationship between Bertha and Mrs. Archer—their frequent tension, arguments, and secretive behavior.
Latimer’s powers of insight fitfully retreat the less he cares about the thoughts of others. His power of foresight increases, and he sees visions of nature, landscapes, cities, and his own death. After seven years of marriage to Bertha, the now successful Dr. Charles Meunier visits Latimer. During Meunier’s visit, Mrs. Archer falls fatally ill. Meunier treats her but tells Latimer that she is close to death and that he wishes to try an experiment: A blood transfusion may revive her after death. Meunier enlists Latimer’s help; they agree not to tell either Bertha or Mrs. Archer.
Mrs. Archer dies and the men convince Bertha to leave her room. Meunier performs a blood transfusion with his own blood and succeeds in reviving Mrs. Archer. Bertha returns to the room just as Mrs. Archer points to her and reveals, “You mean to poison your husband” (42). After this pronouncement, Mrs. Archer dies a second and final time.
Following this revelation, Bertha and Latimer live apart, with Latimer spending most of his time traveling abroad in solitude to distance himself from his powers of double consciousness. At the conclusion of the novella, the day of Latimer’s death arrives as predicted. The narrative ends with his death.
Chapter 2 Analysis
Though Latimer foresees anguish, hatred, and pain in his relationship with Bertha, he continues to choose to indulge in the present moment: “I wouldn’t mind if you really loved me only for a little while” (27). Directly before their marriage, Latimer describes himself as happy, still holding on to the hope that he might experience a brief period of love with Bertha. Latimer is so intent on this delusion that he does not consider that Bertha’s arguments against marital love apply to him as well as his brother. Bertha claims that she would rather marry someone she disdains so as to avoid her feelings becoming too entangled in the relationship and possibly sacrificing her independent identity (26). This is one of several moments when Bertha effectively tells Latimer exactly who she is, but despite his general despair regarding the gap between public and private personas, he clings to the possibility of just such a gap in Bertha’s case. This self-delusion indicates that Latimer may be an unreliable narrator.
The couple’s marital habits reflect similar tension surrounding gender and identity. Directly following their marriage, Latimer notes that they go on extravagant tours of the neighborhood, flaunting their wealth. The fact that both Latimer and Bertha have inherited an upper-class income allows them certain privileges and freedoms. This is particularly true for Latimer, whom Eliot describes as rich enough to not have to interact with his wife on a daily basis: “The rich find it easy to live married and apart” (34). Since they do not need to work and have no children together, neither Latimer nor Bertha is financially dependent on the other. Latimer is free to pursue his daily life as he sees fit, whereas if they were a working-class couple, their shared need for economic support would bring them more often into each other’s company.
Bertha’s relative independence also speaks to fears about women’s autonomy and identity. Victorian gender norms and anxieties are similarly evident when Charles Meunier proclaims his desire to experiment on Mrs. Archer’s deceased body. Meunier simply tells Latimer that he wishes to do so, and the men take it upon themselves to proceed with Mrs. Archer’s body as they see fit. No reference is made to consulting Mrs. Archer’s family or friends for consent, and Meunier states explicitly that he does not want Bertha to know about their plans: “I don’t want her to know about it. There are always insuperable difficulties with women in these matters, and the effect on the supposed dead body may be startling” (39). Here, Eliot illustrates patriarchal Victorian society and the liberties that it afforded men—particularly successful, wealthy, and trusted medical men.
Latimer’s power of insight finally extends to Bertha on the evening of his father’s death. This underscores the novella’s theme of death as one of the veils that separate people’s minds. This veil can either drop, causing separation, or lift, causing insight: “In the first moments when we come away from the presence of death, every other relation to the living is merged, to our feeling, in the great relation of a common nature and a common destiny” (31). When Latimer’s power of insight becomes fitful and begins to recede, it coincides with his depression and growing apathy toward the conditions of his life (25). He no longer cares what people think of him, which suggests that his power of insight was only as strong as his desire to understand the people around him. His reluctance to admit his powers to Meunier supports this: “The horror I had of again breaking in on the privacy of another soul, made me, by an irrational instinct, draw the shroud of concealment more closely around my own, as we automatically perform the gesture we feel to be wanting in another” (38). The extent of Latimer’s double consciousness rests upon how he desires others to approach his own inner world.
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