The Lifted Veil Literary Elements

Fiction

The setting of the book is at a time when the main character, Latimer, is foreshadowing his death. The location of the book is unnamed.

The narrator is Latimer and he narrates the story in the first person. The narrator holds the view that his gift of seeing visions is very tedious.

The tone is solemn whereas the mood is melancholy. This is because the book tells of the horrors that Latimer has faced in his life and how his gift is tedious for him to bear.

The protagonist is Latimer who loves Bertha Grant who is his brother's fiancée. The antagonist is Bertha Grant who is a described as a cold hearted wife because she married Latimer after the death of Alfred. She was very indifferent towards her husband and even asked him to commit suicide.

The major conflict is the relationship and marriage of Berta Grant and Latimer. Latimer loves Bertha immensely whereas she is indifferent to him.

The climax is reached when the servants at the house of Latimer and Bertha accuse her of purporting to poison Latimer. Bertha had told Latimer that it would be better to commit suicide so that she can have a better life. After the accusations that the servants made that Bertha had ordered them to poison him, he takes a tour of the world.

Latimer foreshadowed that Bertha would be his wife and not his brother's, This came to pass as his brother Alfred died and Latimer was married to Bertha Grant.

Latimer understated the powers that he had in foreseeing things when he thought that he had been sleeping and had a dream. He had had a vision.

The literary allusion in the following sentences, "I used to do as Jean Jacques did--lie down in my boat and let it glide where it would, while I looked up at the departing glow leaving one mountain-top after the other as if the prophet's chariot of fire were passing over them on its way to the home of light." Latimer alludes to the life of Jean Jacques who was a writer, a philosopher, and a composer in Geneva.

The imagery of nature, " ...the poet's sensibility that finds no vent but in silent tears on the sunny bank, when the noonday light sparkles on the water, or in an inward shudder at the sound of harsh human tones, the sight of a cold human eye--this dumb passion brings with it a fatal solitude of soul in the society of one's fellow-men."Latimer describes the bank as sunny, human tones as harsh, and the human eye as cold. The descriptions build imagery.

N/A

There is a parallel that is drawn between the lives of Alfred and Latimer. Alfred was the beloved son of his father whereas Latimer did not receive such love from his father. Latimer lived long and married the fiancée of his brother whereas Alfred died young.

The words, 'lifting the veil' are metonyms of peering through something. In this book, they are a metonymy for Latimer's ability to see visions of the future.

N/A