The Unicorn: Analysis of Major Characters.

Hannah Crean-Smith, nominally the mistress of Gaze Castle, a large and forbidding nineteenth century house situated near the black sandstone cliffs of western Ireland's coastline. Hannah, a lovely golden-haired woman who is no longer young nor yet middle-aged, is restricted to the castle because of an indiscretion that she committed almost nine years before the story begins. Having married Peter Crean-Smith before she was twenty years old, she then had a two-year affair with Philip “Pip” Lejour, a neighbor. After being discovered by Peter, who was more frequently absent than present, she is said to have tried to kill him by pushing him over a cliff, after which she was imprisoned in the house and her husband left for New York. She has not seen him since, but he is rumored to be returning soon. Pampered and indulged for their own selfish purposes by the staff and a few other persons, Hannah nevertheless is a prisoner, arrested in time, fearful of the world outside the castle, and apparently content to live in an alcoholic haze, childlike and unchanging, like an enchanted princess.