The Crown of Leaves
The very first interaction between the boy and the tree is one in which the boy gathers up the falling leaves in order to fashion for himself a crown. With this crown upon his head, he proceeds to play a game in which he pretends he is king of the forest. Notably, no other children are shown present during this game, indicating it is a solitary game. This self-situation by the boy as king is a symbolic foreshadowing of a series of events which lead may readers to castigate the boy as utterly selfish in his relationship with the tree. Unquestionably, the boy loves the tree back, but the argument here is that it is the opposite kind of love shown by the tree. Hers is unconditional; his is very conditional based on selfish desires.
The Apples
When the boy has grown too old to enjoy merely swinging from the branches, his desires have turned more sophisticated. Sophisticated in terms of needing money to fulfill them. He even asks the tree for money, but since she has none, she suggests she takes his apples and sell them to raise money. The significance of the symbolism of the apples is shifted from an allegorical interpretation in which the tree (she) represents the boy’s mother to one in which the story is a metaphor for the environmental movement. The apples here represent the capitalist exploitation of natural resources without regard to the environmental impact on those resources. The boy may enjoy a short-term gain with the money earned by selling the apples, but at the expense of long-term appreciation of the other joys the tree can bring.
The Carvings
When the story starts, the tree has nothing carved into its trunk. A little later, there is a heart carved into the trunk “M.E. & T.” The suggestion being, of course, that “T” stands for tree and thus the carving is a declaration of love by the boy for the tree. As he grows older, however, another carving appears: a heart with a different set of initials beneath “M.E.” The second carving is a symbol for the boy’s maturation from a young boy content with playing games by himself into a man who acknowledges to the tree that he wants a wife and children. The symbolism of this carving representing maturity is juxtaposed against the fact that the tree continues to address “M.E.” as boy even as he ages into an elderly man.
The Boat
When the boy comes back and builds a boat from made from the trunk of the tree, he describes himself as “old and sad.” His specific desire is for a boat that he can use to sail far away. The symbolism here fills in the unspoken gaps in his story. He is pictured as a middle-aged man holding a suitcase with the implication being that he wants to escape his unhappy life with that wife and those kids he spoke about wanting earlier. The boat comes to symbolize not just that he has been a failure in life but combined with coming back to the tree to make the vessel of his escape, the boat also ties in with the crown of leaves a symbol of his selfishness.
The Tree
The tree is a symbolic of different things, depending upon the overall allegorical interpretation one takes. For many—perhaps most—the tree is really a symbol for the boy’s mother; her willingness to give and give despite getting so little in return is symbolic of the unconditional love of a mother for a child. Another popular allegorical interpretation of the story is one focusing on environmentalism in which the tree is symbolic of all the planet’s natural resources which are exploited by selfish human beings for short-term goals and needs.
