In “The Interlopers,” nature itself—and specifically the feeling of the forest—is a motif that serves to emphasize the conflict between men and nature. The way the forest becomes a symbol of power and disruption is clearest when Georg and Ulrich meet in a clearing and a tree crashes down upon them before they can kill 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.
In this crucial moment, Georg and Ulrich are on the verge of killing each other over a strip of disputed land. Their power conflict is suddenly superseded by the force of the natural world, and for the rest of the story they are trapped, powerless, beneath the beech tree. In this scene, it also becomes clear that the men’s rivalry is pointless compared to the power of the forest and the storm around them. The real conflict of the story moving forward is one between the men and the natural world, as the men attempt to survive and maintain hope that they will be rescued in a remote landscape that seems bent on destroying them. The eventual appearance of the wolves once again plays into the story's nature motif, underscoring the idea that both Georg and Ulrich—and all humans, really—are at the mercy of nature, thus challenging the idea that anyone can really own land in the first place.
