The Burden of Knowledge
Latimer’s ability to have visions which foretell the future provide him with knowledge denied to others. Strangely, however, he cannot seem to find any way to take advantage of this gift, exploit it good or engage it even for evil purposes. Instead, knowledge of the future course of events for himself and others weighs upon like a burden. This weight is so heavy that it squeezes out any opportunity to enjoy the present because of the foreknowledge of where the present leads. The underlying theme is not that knowledge is a burden which is better avoided, of course, but rather than knowledge is a gift which one must learn how to use. Knowledge becomes a burden only when it goes unused.
Treading into God’s Domain
The ability to see the future is not one which Latimer is born with; it is mysterious acquired late in his teens. This is not some Frankenstein-like story of a mad scientist pursuing knowledge best left to God’s domain in that sense. But by the end, that theme does enter into the proceedings with the very, very timely arrival of Latimer’s old childhood chum who is now a respected physician and finds himself settled into the perfect opportunity conduct an experiment in corpse reanimation. Unlike Dr. Frankenstein and so many other mad scientists who followed, however, this doctor is not punished for his daring to challenge God’s will. In fact, the experiment proves rewarding in ways he never expected. Instead, it is Latimer who seems to be punished; the man whose God-like powers come not from science, but nature.
Everyone Loves a Mystery
The narrator asserts a fundamental truth about human nature when he observes that “So absolute is our soul’s need of something hidden and uncertain…that if the whole future were laid bare to us beyond to-day, the interest of all mankind would be bent on the hours that lie between.” Latimer is the ultimate realization of the human craving for mystery. Even though he knows his future with Bertha inexorably leads the moment she insults him and suggests he commit suicide and even though right from the start Bertha makes no effort at all to hide from him her really quite unpleasant personality, he nevertheless persists in pursuing her through to marriage. And all because except for that one moment of marital discord far into the future, she stays out of his visions and thus becomes the only mystery in his life. Except she’s not really a mystery; she is what she is. But so desperate is for some kind of mystery to his existence that he creates both a veil for her to wear and mystery to be revealed when it is lifted. Except, of course, when that constructed veil is removed, there is actual mystery because, as she herself admitted, “The easiest way to deceive a poet is to tell him the truth.”
