Story summary
Samenvatting van De opgeheven sluier
- 8 min. leestijd
- 8 parts
- Binnenkort te beluisteren
A sick man in 1850 knows the exact hour of his death, and the gift that shows it also shows him a marriage to dread.
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De opgeheven sluier in het kort
Samenvatting: 8 min leestijd
- Leestijd
- Ongeveer 1 h 10 min55 min fast, 1 h 20 min slow
- Lengte
- 16.500 woorden
- Bibliotheekniveau
- Uitdagend long sentences, a rich vocabulary
- Voor het eerst verschenen
- 1859by George Eliot
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). Hoelang het duurt om de klassiekers te lezen · Bijgewerkt
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De opgeheven sluier in short
The Lifted Veil is the confession of Latimer, a sensitive man who knows the hour of his death. After a severe illness in Geneva he sees scenes before they happen and hears the thoughts of those near him. Only Bertha Grant, a cold and clever young woman, stays hidden from him.
What De opgeheven sluier is about
What would you do if you knew the exact minute of your death, down to the blue flame in the fire and the bell that no one answers? Latimer, the narrator of The Lifted Veil, knows it. He begins his story one month before September 20, 1850, hoping strangers will pity him when he is gone.
George Eliot wrote this short confession in 1859, and it is her one clear step into the supernatural. Latimer tells of a lonely childhood, a severe illness, and a gift that shows him distant places and the private thoughts of others. The gift is no blessing.
Voor wie is het?. Readers who love dark psychological tales, troubled narrators and supernatural stories rooted in human questions will enjoy this novella, along with lovers of Victorian fiction.
The story in 8 parts
Key idea 1 · free to read
A dying man announces the hour of his death
The story opens with its own ending, at least for the narrator. Latimer says that angina is closing in and that his doctor expects only a few more months. Then he goes further. He knows the date, September 20, 1850, the hour, ten at night, and every small event in his study.
He describes it like a man reading from a page. A tongue of blue flame rises from the fire. His lamp burns low. The tightness begins in his chest, and he pulls the bell, but no one comes. Then the lamp goes out with a foul smell, and the dark closes in.
What troubles him most is not only death. He once thirsted for the unknown, and now that thirst is gone. He longs for the fields, the brook, the scent after rain. Knowing the future has drained the colour from the world before the world has left him.
He writes because he has never opened his heart to anyone. People save their pity for the dead, he says, when the heart can no longer be hurt. So the story is about how a man arrives at such a place.
A man who knows his last hour begins his confession to win the pity the living withheld.
- 2Begin gratis met lezen
A sensitive boy is shaped by a cold home
Latimer's story begins with a loss.
- 3Begin gratis met lezen
Illness opens a door to visions and voices
During his recovery in Geneva, Latimer's father mentions a coming trip to Prague.
- 4Begin gratis met lezen
Bertha is the one mind he cannot read
There is one exception to Latimer's gift.
- 5Begin gratis met lezen
Death, marriage and the lifting of the veil
Back in England, Alfred becomes engaged to Bertha, and Latimer stays silent, paralyzed by shyness and by fear of her contempt.
- 6Begin gratis met lezen
Foresight cannot defeat desire
One of the story's central ideas is that knowing the future is not the same as changing it.
- 7Begin gratis met lezen
Sympathy needs mystery, and mystery needs privacy
The second theme is about how people live together.
- 8Begin gratis met lezen
A confession told from the edge of the grave
How Eliot tells the story is part of its meaning.
Read all 8 key ideas now
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Characters, plot and themes
Main characters
- Latimer The narrator, a sensitive younger son who gains the power to foresee scenes and read minds, and who longs above all for understanding and love.
- Bertha Grant A sharp, cool, beautiful heiress with pale gray eyes, whose mind is closed to Latimer and who wants admiration and power.
- Alfred Latimer's confident elder brother, heir to the family, who expects to marry Bertha and treats Latimer with kind condescension.
- Latimer's father A rigid, orderly banker and landowner who wants a worldly successor and does not understand his dreamy younger son.
- Charles Meunier Latimer's friend from Geneva, a gifted medical scientist who later returns famous and eager to try a bold experiment.
- Mrs. Archer Bertha's new maid, a bold, handsome and hard woman who becomes the mistress's strange favourite.
How it ends (spoiler)
On the night of Archer's death, Meunier carries out his experiment, and for a moment the dead woman revives. She then dies again. Bertha and Latimer separate for good, and he wanders abroad until illness brings him to Devonshire. His gift returns, and he awaits the hour he has foreseen.
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Vragen over De opgeheven sluier
What is The Lifted Veil about?
It is the confession of Latimer, a sensitive man who gains visions of the future and the power to hear other minds, and who marries the one woman he cannot read, with painful results.
Who is Bertha Grant in The Lifted Veil?
Filmore. Latimer cannot read her mind, which makes her seem a thrilling mystery to him.
What does the veil mean in The Lifted Veil?
The veil stands for what hides one person's inner thoughts from another. Latimer's gift draws it back, and the story asks what happens to love, hope and sympathy when nothing stays hidden.
When was The Lifted Veil written and is it a true story?
George Eliot wrote it in 1859. It is a work of fiction with a supernatural gift at its centre, set in the first half of the nineteenth century in Geneva, Prague, Vienna and England.
Is The Lifted Veil easy to read?
It is a short tale of about sixteen thousand words, told in the first person by a vivid and eloquent narrator, with clear scenes and a sense of approaching danger that keeps you listening.
Verwijs naar deze uitgave
Eliot, George. The Lifted Veil. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-lifted-veil.
Eliot, G. (2026). The lifted veil. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-lifted-veil (Original work published 1859)
Eliot, George. The Lifted Veil. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-lifted-veil.
@book{eliot2026lifted,
author = {Eliot, George},
title = {The Lifted Veil},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-lifted-veil},
note = {First published 1859}
}
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