The Great God Pan characters

Appears from the start

A physician and investigator of the mind who believes ordinary consciousness hides a more terrible reality. In his secluded house in Wales, he prepares an experimental brain operation intended to let a human subject perceive that hidden world.

Appears from the start

A cautious gentleman invited by Dr. Raymond to witness his experiment. Although deeply troubled by the operation, he remains to observe it and later records accounts of other events that seem to bear on what he saw.

Appears from the start

A young woman who has lived under Dr. Raymond's guardianship since childhood. Raymond chooses her as the subject of an operation he says will open her perception to a reality normally concealed from human beings.

First appears in chapter 2

A mysterious girl fostered in a Welsh village. She spends much of her time alone in the woods and exerts a disturbing fascination over other children. The stories surrounding her suggest experiences that the witnesses cannot explain in ordinary terms.

First appears in chapter 2

A village girl who becomes closely attached to Helen Vaughan. After going into the woods with Helen, Rachel returns frightened and distraught, gives her mother only a fragmentary account, and soon disappears.

First appears in chapter 3

A London gentleman who encounters his former university friend Charles Herbert in a state of complete ruin. Herbert's strange explanation draws Villiers into tracing the history of the woman Herbert married and the harm associated with her.

First appears in chapter 3

A former university acquaintance of Villiers, once prosperous and respectable but now homeless and broken. He attributes his collapse to the beautiful woman he married, saying that life with her exposed him to profound corruption and fear.

First appears in chapter 3

A well-informed friend of Villiers who supplies reports and connections as the investigation expands. His knowledge of London society helps Villiers link apparently separate deaths and scandals.

First appears in chapter 8

A physician asked to attend the final confrontation with the woman Villiers and Clarke have investigated. He witnesses physical changes that resist a conventional medical explanation and later sets them down in a written account.