I would want to point out the way in which the violence of
nature against the two interlopers on her territory is symbolised very efficiently in
the way that both Georg and Ulrich are knocked down and crushed by the tree in the
storm. Consider how this event is described in the story, which comes just as Georg and
Ulrich face each other:
And before the moment of hesitation had given
way to action, a deed of Nature's own violence overwhelmed them both. A fierce shriek of
the storm had been answered by a splitting crash over their heads, and ere they could
leap aside, a mass of falling beech tree had thundered down on
them.
It is important to
realise that in this story, nature itself is a vital character, and such passages and
the symbolism they contain make us think that the true interlopers are the two men who
have foolishly started a feud over a stretch of land that they had no right to in the
first place. The tree, the storm and the wolves indicate symbolically the supremacy of
nature which is compared to the frail and arrogant claims of man over specific tracts of
land.
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