Grabiel Ernest is a story about a man named Van Cheele who is a parish

councilor living with his aunt on woodland property. One day, when Van
Cheele is walking through the forest he comes across a strange boy.
Van Cheele soon finds out that the boy lives in the forest, feeds on
flesh and does not sleep at night. After telling the boy to leave the
forest, he heads home without informing others of his acquaintance.
The next morning, Van Cheele finds the boy in his house. When his aunt
enters the room Van Cheele tells her that the boy has lost his memory
and way. Van Cheele’s aunt decides to name the boy Gabriel Ernest and
arranges for him to entertain the infants during her Sunday school
class. When Van Cheele goes to find Cunningham, an artist who has seen
the boy transform into a wolf he learns that Gabriel Ernest is a
werewolf. Van Cheele rushed home hoping to arrive before the sun set
but he was too late, Gabriel had already disappeared with a child. Many
people assumed that the child had fallen in the water and the boy had
jumped in to save the child.

In my opinion, Van Cheele is partially responsible for the tragedy that

occurred. First, as a parish councilor, Van Cheele should have informed
his town of the potential dangers of Gabriel Ernest, when he learned
that the “wild-looking” boy enjoyed eating children and suspected that
the boy might have killed an infant who died two months ago. Second,
Van Cheele should have told his aunt about the dangerous boy being in
their house instead of lying and hiding what he had learned about the
boy. In that way, his aunt might not have asked Gabriel to entertain
infants in her Sunday-school class and asked him for help to send one
of the children home. Third, when many people had assumed that
Gabriel Ernest “bravely sacrificed his life for another” and host a
memorial for Gabriel, Van Cheele should have told everyone the truth
about Gabriel and how he turns into a werewolf when the sun sets.

On that other hand, Van Cheele should not take full responsibility for
the tragedy that occurred, as he had made several efforts to explore
 the truth and tried to prevent the tragedy from happening. He first
met the boy in the woods and learned about the strange things that he
does, he “declared authoritatively” that the scary boy should not stay
in the woods. However, the boy was not afraid and threatened to come
to Van Cheele’s house. When the boy appeared at Van Cheele’s house,
Van Cheele quickly decided to take a trip to “consult Cunningham
without loss of time”. After Van Cheele learned that Gabriel is a
werewolf, he tried his best to return home as fast as possible and
found out that his aunt had asked Gabriel to take the little Toop Child
home. Van Cheele had raced again to the home of the Toop’s until he
heard a shrill wail of fear and learned that the child must have died.

In conclusion, Van Cheele is partially responsible for the death of the

Toop’s child, as there are things that Van Cheele could have done
differently to prevent the tragedy. However, the death of the child
was not his full responsibility, as that was an unusual situation. A
countless number of people in the world are afraid of what others
think of them and many times this causes problems. Although Van
Cheele was not fully responsible for the tragedy, he should have spoken
up and told his town about Gabriel Ernest.