The Lifted Veil | Born Again: Reviving Bertha Grant

In the following essay, the author re-evaluates Bertha Grant as the product of Latimer’s creative interpretation of her as woman as subject.’’

In the conclusion of George Eliot’s novella, The Lifted Veil, Bertha Grant’s maid, Archer, is brought back to life momentarily by a blood transfusion. This revivication, brief as it is, is long enough for Archer to reveal in her second death-bed scene, that Bertha has plans to ‘‘poison’’ her husband. Archer’s eyes meet Bertha’s in ‘‘the recognition of hate’’ and she says in a gasping voice, ‘‘... the poison is in the black cabinet ... I got it for you.... ’’ Of the witnesses to the ‘‘poison’’ plot: Dr. Meunier is sworn to secrecy; Bertha is mute,...

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