The Great God Pan by Arthur Machen
"The Great God Pan," authored by Arthur Machen, is a seminal work in the horror genre first published in 1894. The narrative unfolds through a series of interconnected stories, primarily centered around Dr. Raymond, who conducts a controversial brain operation on a young woman named Mary, aiming to enable her to perceive the divine essence of the Great God Pan. The operation leads to tragic consequences, as Mary becomes catatonic, and her subsequent fate intertwines with various characters, including Mr. Clarke and the financially ruined Charles Herbert.
As the plot progresses, themes of the supernatural and the occult emerge, notably with the character Helen Vaughan, who has a disturbing influence on those around her and is tied to a series of malevolent events, including a string of suicides among her admirers. The story culminates in a confrontation where the characters must face the dark truths surrounding Helen's identity and her connections to past tragedies. Ultimately, Machen's work explores the boundaries of reality and the insidious nature of hidden evils, encapsulating a deeply unsettling vision of human existence and the unknown forces at play within it. This novel is considered significant for its exploration of psychological horror and the blurred lines between sanity and madness.
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The Great God Pan
First published: 1894 (in The Great God Pan and the Inmost Light)
Type of work: Novel
Type of plot: Fantasy—cautionary
Time of work: The late nineteenth century
Locale: Wales and London, England
The Plot
The Great God Pan was Arthur Machens first important work. Machen published the initial chapter in The Whirlwind in 1890. In 1893 he submitted the entire novel to another publisher, adding a second work, the story “The Inmost Light.” The two appeared together the following year.
The Great God Pan is composed of a number of individual narratives that at first seem jumbled but that eventually fit together like pieces of a horrifying jigsaw puzzle. Machen relies on several characters to present these narratives: the egotistical Dr. Raymond, the outwardly conventional but inwardly skeptical Mr. Clarke, the unlucky Charles Herbert, and the hearty Mr. Villiers.
As the novel opens, Raymond is planning to perform a brain operation that will allow his patient Mary to “see” the God Pan, by which he means apprehending the spiritual reality beyond everyday events. He has invited Clarke to Wales to witness the results. After the operation, the unconscious young woman seems to register wonder, then horror, after which she sinks into idiocy.
For years afterward, Clarke avoids the subject of the occult, but he gradually compiles a collection of unusual but apparently true stories he calls “Memoirs to Prove the Existence of the Devil.” One such account involves a young woman known as Helen V. Helen was supposedly adopted by a relative who sought another home for her as she approached puberty. A farmer living on the Welsh border offered to be her guardian but did not count on the unhealthy effect she would have on other children in the neighborhood. In one incident, she was seen playing in the woods with a naked man resembling a satyr.
One evening Herbert and Villiers meet by accident inLondon. The two had attended school together, but Herbert has since been reduced to begging. He confides that the woman he married, Helen Vaughan, stole his money and disappeared. Later Villiers learns of the “Paul Street case,” in which the Herberts were implicated in murder. These events persuade Villiers to visit his financial adviser Clarke, but not on business. He describes his encounter with Herbert, his visit to the now-deserted Herbert house, and his discovery of a sketch in a pile of old newspapers. Clarke recognizes the sketch as resembling the patient Dr. Raymond operated on so many years before. The woman, Villiers insists, is Mrs. Herbert.
The remainder of the novel develops in similarly indirect but obvious fashion. Readers learn of Mrs. Beaumont, a wealthy beauty who is the toast of the season. A rash of suicides among gentlemen who have visited Mrs. Beaumonts house sweeps London. Villiers discovers that the woman in question has been known not only as Mrs. Herbert but also as Helen Vaughan and Miss Raymond, the name by which she is recognized in a disreputable quarter of London. Finally Villiers and Clarke confront the woman with their evidence and give her the choice of hanging herself or facing arrest.
In the last chapter, Machens characters reflect on Mrs. Beaumonts end. Chief among these commentators is Dr. Matheson, who describes attending a suicide victim whose body he sees degenerate horribly down the evolutionary ladder. The corpse wavers from sex to sex and dissolves, but then reasserts itself via a “Form” the doctor will not describe, until it becomes a human corpse again. Finally Raymond provides the missing piece of the puzzle, confessing that although Mary died nine months after his experiment, she first gave birth to a child who was clearly evil incarnate. Helen Vaughan, later known as Helen V., Mrs. Herbert, Mrs. Beaumont, and Miss Raymond, was the daughter of Mary and the Great God Pan.