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Summary
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Gabriel-Ernest, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Appearances vs. Reality
Social Status and Hypocrisy
Wild vs. Domestic
Fear of the Unknown
Summary
Analysis
As Van Cheele is driving his guest, the artist Cunningham, back to the train station from his house in the countryside, Cunningham tells him that “There is a wild beast in your woods.” Van Cheele answers that there are foxes and weasels, but nothing larger or more dangerous. Cunningham says nothing more, and the talkative Van Cheele at first pays his ominous statement no mind. Arriving at the train station, Van Cheele asks Cunningham what he meant by what he said. Instead of answering him, Cunningham tersely responds “Nothing. My imagination,” and as his train arrives, he departs without saying anything more.
This opening passage sets the story in the English countryside. Van Cheele’s position of power in his community as the owner of the woods is alluded to, as well as his neglect of them, as he ignores Cunningham’s disturbing warning. Cunningham’s remark about a wild beast in the woods introduces a sense of foreboding, and Van Cheele’s inability to fully dismiss its presence could suggest that, on some level, he fears the unknown and allows this fear to shape his beliefs. His initial insistence that only small, harmless animals live on his land suggests that he feels a sense of control and perhaps superiority over the natural world. Yet the beast raises the possibility that what appears to be true (at least from Van Cheele’s perspective) may not align with reality. Cunningham’s enigmatic personality and potential lack of reliability are also highlighted in his reluctance to elaborate.
Themes
Returning home, Van Cheele takes one of his habitual afternoon walks through his woods. He pays close attention to his surroundings as he does, “not so much for the purpose of assisting contemporary science as to provide topics for conversation afterwards.” Van Cheele is quite interested in plants and animals as a topic of conversation, and his aunt who lives with him describes him as a “great naturalist.” In fact, he makes a point of lecturing at his friends and acquaintances about seasonal changes in his woods, such as when the bluebells begin to flower.
Van Cheele’s attitude toward his woods as a conversation starter rather than a living, wild place demonstrates his oblivious and hypocritical nature, concerned much more with appearances than reality. This also introduces the importance of social status in the story. The author shows how, to Van Cheele, the woods are a tool to gain social status, not something to be respected, understood, and perhaps even feared.
Themes
On this particular walk, however, Van Cheele sees something quite unusual in the woods: an approximately 16-year-old boy lying naked by a pool of water, drying himself off in the sunlight. Stunned into silence by this surprise, Van Cheele cannot imagine where this “wild-looking” boy with a “tigerish gleam” in his eyes could have come from. He recalls that the miller’s wife lost her baby two months ago—they assumed that it drowned in the mill-race—but the difference in age means that this boy could not be the same child.
Van Cheele is not only caught unawares, but is surprised by the fact that he’s surprised, further demonstrating how he takes his safety and sense of control over his environment for granted. Likewise, it takes this surprise to keep Van Cheele quiet, forcing him to observe more closely rather than just talk. Van Cheele’s recollection about the missing child hints that things may indeed be amiss in the woods, and that there may have been other clues that he has either not noticed or unconsciously dismissed.
Themes
Van Cheele asks the boy what he is doing in his woods; responding sarcastically, the boy tells him that he lives there, sleeping during the day and keeping busy at night. When Van Cheele asks him what he eats, the boy responds “Flesh,” that of wild and domestic animals, and “child-flesh,” though he says that he has not been able to get his hands on children for two months. Brushing this off as a dark joke, Van Cheele continues to question him. The boy tells him that he hunts at night, on four feet, and when Van Cheele asks if he means that the boy hunts with a dog, the boy says that no dog would be “very anxious for [his] company, especially at night.” When Van Cheele, feeling increasingly unsettled, tells the boy he cannot continue to stay in the woods, the boy takes off into the woods.
The boy’s sarcasm and lack of deference to Van Cheele, on his own property, is a clear violation of social norms. His strange statements and appearance, however, make this the least of Van Cheele’s worries. While Van Cheele most likely also eats “Flesh,” at least that of animals, the boy’s animal-like descriptions of his hunting plainly distinguish him from Van Cheele and other humans; what he says about “child-flesh” definitively crosses a line, though whether as a bad joke or a terrifying admission is not yet clear. That the boy hunts at night also places him far outside of social normality. Van Cheele tries to fit the boy into familiar social categories such as criminality, wondering if he is a poacher and trying to evict him from the woods, but is left with no answers and a growing sense of discomfort about what he does not know.
Themes
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Walking home, Van Cheele remembers what Cunningham said regarding the “wild beast.” Reflecting on both his conversation with the boy and recent events in the area, he wonders if the boy could be responsible. Game, poultry, and other livestock have all been missing lately. Suddenly, Van Cheele connects the miller’s missing child to the boy’s statement regarding “child-flesh.” Both events took place two months ago, and the miller’s wife maintained that she had heard a scream “on the hill side of the house, in the opposite direction from the water.” Van Cheele struggles to dismiss this disturbing thought.
Looking back at recent events, Van Cheele realizes that he did indeed ignore evidence that something out of the ordinary was happening in his woods and the surrounding farms. Game, or wild animals hunted for sport, has been missing, as has livestock from nearby farms. Worst of all, the miller’s child went missing. At this point, however, Van Cheele only has a series of separate incidents before him and no coherent theory to connect or explain them. Rather than soothing him, this lack of explanation, a feeling Van Cheele is not used to, only deepens his worries.
Themes
At dinner, Van Cheele is not his usual talkative self, keeping quiet about his encounter in the woods. He worries that his social position could be damaged by association with the boy; as he is a “parish councillor and justice of the peace,” there is even a chance that he could be fined for the missing poultry and livestock if the boy is really responsible. Van Cheele’s aunt asks him “Where’s your voice gone to? […] One would think you had seen a wolf.” Missing the joke, Van Cheele dismisses her statement, thinking to himself that if he had actually seen a wolf in his woods, he would most certainly be talking about it.
The implication that Van Cheele, as a landowner, is an important man is his community is confirmed here, as readers learn that he also holds legislative and judiciary positions. His hypocrisy and concern for his own status clearly overrule any concern for his safety or the safety of his community; whether this is because Van Cheele is truly that self-centered or because he simply cannot imagine a genuine danger in his woods is left ambiguous. Van Cheele’s aunt’s joke about seeing a wolf both recalls what Cunningham said about the wild beast and disturbingly hints what might be happening in the woods. This saying also highlights the apparent incongruity of danger with the peaceful English countryside, as wolves became extinct in England at least 200 years before the time in which this story is set.
Themes
The next day at breakfast, Van Cheele makes up his mind to visit Cunningham in the next town over and find out why he said what he did about the “wild beast” in his woods. Feeling reassured by his plan of action, Van Cheele enters the morning-room as part of his daily routine and is shocked by the sight of the boy lying naked on his ottoman. As his aunt enters, Van Cheele quickly throws a copy of the Morning Post over the boy, telling her that “This is a poor boy who has lost his way— and lost his memory.”
Van Cheele hopes that by consulting Cunningham, he can solve the mystery and relieve his own worries. That this is suddenly derailed by the boy’s appearance in his morning-room highlights how fragile Van Cheele’s separation of the wilderness from his domestic life is. Faced with explaining to his aunt what he cannot even explain to himself, Van Cheele’s instinctual (and comical) response is to cover things up, both literally and metaphorically, providing a more socially acceptable explanation for the boy’s wild behavior and appearance.
Themes
Compelled by Van Cheele’s story of the boy’s lost memory, Van Cheele’s aunt insists that the boy is clothed, cleaned, and taken care of. As the boy has no name, she decides to call him Gabriel-Ernest. While he is no longer naked and dirty, the boy continues to worry Van Cheele. Van Cheele’s doubts are further supported by the reactions of his animals; his reliable old dog runs out of the house and refuses to come back in, and his typically cheerful canary chirps quietly and fearfully in its cage. Van Cheele resolves to go see Cunningham at once, while his aunt sets Gabriel-Ernest to work entertaining the children in her Sunday-school class.
Van Cheele’s aunt shares his selective vision and hypocrisy, though she expresses it somewhat differently; this implies that their obliviousness is at least in part a product of their elite social and class status. The prim and proper clothes, name, and tasks she gives the wild boy, now Gabriel-Ernest, build both dramatic and comedic tension, showing how superficially she considers him and his story. The fear Gabriel-Ernest inspires in Van Cheele’s domestic animals further affirms his wild character, hinting that the animals can intuit something Van Cheele does not yet understand, and his aunt is completely ignorant of.
Themes
Cunningham is not immediately helpful, referring to his mother’s death from “brain trouble” to explain his wish to avoid thinking too much about fantastic, abnormal events and images. At Van Cheele’s urging, however, he tells him what he saw. On his last night at Van Cheele’s, Cunningham was standing by the hedges watching the sunset, when he noticed a naked boy doing the same on the hillside, in a pose “suggestive of some wild faun of Pagan myth.” Cunningham was about to call out to him, hoping to use him as a painting model. As the sun set, however, the boy vanished. Instead, on the hillside in the boy’s place stood a large, threatening wolf.
As was suggested earlier, Cunningham has a penchant for strange ideas and cryptic statements; perhaps his words should be viewed more skeptically. The way he describes what he saw, and his own words about his mother, leave open the possibility that his artist’s imagination has distorted his vision of reality. Nevertheless, he finally offers a compelling, if fantastical, explanation for Gabriel-Ernest’s behavior and the mysterious happenings in and around the woods.
Themes
Van Cheele does not wait to hear the rest of Cunningham’s story, taking off for the train station as fast as he can. Deciding that a telegram to his aunt explaining that “Gabriel-Ernest is a werewolf” would not be understood, he feels that his only option is to reach home before dark. Reaching home just before sunset, he learns that his aunt has sent Gabriel-Ernest to take “the little Toop child home,” for safety. Van Cheele runs out once again, hoping to reach the Toops’ house before it is too late.
The revelation that Gabriel-Ernest is a werewolf does not relieve Van Cheele of his fears as he had hoped. In fact, knowing the truth may be even worse. It is uncharacteristic of Van Cheele to learn something so fantastic and not share it immediately, but he now realizes that some things are so out of the ordinary they cannot be understood or even effectively communicated. For once his tendency not to stop and think is in his favor as he launches into action rather than getting caught up in words. His guileless aunt, however, has been fully taken in by Gabriel-Ernest’s wholesome appearance ( or the appearance she projected onto him), creating a perfect opportunity for him to strike again.
Themes
Just before Van Cheele comes in sight of Gabriel-Ernest and the Toop child, the sun goes down and he hears “a shrill wail of fear.” There is no sign of either of them except for Gabriel-Ernest’s clothes lying by the side of the road. Because of this, others assume that the child fell into the mill-race alongside the road and Gabriel-Ernest jumped in to save it, drowning in the attempt, though some workers also claim to have heard the scream that Van Cheele did.
Without having seen for themselves what happened, Van Cheele, his aunt, and the community can only reconstruct the disappearance of Gabriel-Ernest and the Toop child from the evidence available. This leads many to assume that they both drowned, making Gabriel-Ernest a hero, while the same evidence confirms for Van Cheele that he was a werewolf and ate the child as night fell and he transformed into a wolf. Ultimately, however, no one will ever know for sure, leaving the mystery and the fear it inspired in a permanent state of irresolution for Van Cheele.
Themes
As the Toops had 11 children, they do not think of the alleged drowning as anything more than an ordinary, everyday tragedy, let alone something supernatural. Van Cheele’s aunt, however, is distraught at the loss of Gabriel-Ernest and has a memorial added to the parish church which reads “Gabriel-Ernest, an unknown boy, who bravely sacrificed his life for another.” Though Van Cheele often supports his aunt’s wishes, he squarely refuses to have anything to do with the Gabriel-Ernest memorial.
Most of the community is clearly content to fit the facts into the least disturbing narrative, quickly smoothing things over and returning to their regular lives. Miss Van Cheele in particular prioritizes her own sense of charity above all else, despite actually knowing nothing about Gabriel-Ernest or what happened that night. Van Cheele, on the other hand, refuses to accept this more comfortable explanation. While his blissful ignorance may be gone forever, the story also suggests that he has grown as a character, both viewing the world around him more carefully and coming to accept the limits of his own knowledge. Of course, it is also possible, in Saki’s ironic presentation, that the lessons Van Cheele learned from this will have little to no impact on other parts of his life, and he will go on living just the way he did before.
Themes
