he Juniper Tree is a folk tale of unknown authorship, though some conjecture suggests that it was formulated through the oral traditions of early Europe. As the story was disseminated throughout different countries including Germany, Scotland, Portugal, and others, it experienced various adaptations, reflecting culture of each region. The most widely known version is from the fairy tales collected by the Brothers Grimm. Many fairy tales are rich in symbols and metaphors that lend themselves to various interpretations, and The Juniper Tree is no exception. This story contains a plethora of symbols and metaphors that can be interpreted in different ways, shedding light on themes such as religion, family dynamics, gender roles, and violence that reflect on time when it is composed.
One possible interpretation of The Juniper Tree is that it reflects religious themes including biblical ideas of transfiguration and resurrection, which might serve to reinforce the significance of virtuous behaviors and the consequences of commiting wrong behaviors. A closer examination of the story reveals that from the portrayal of characters and events to the utilization of symbols and imagery, The Juniper Tree seems to draw heavily on Christian tradations and beliefs. A prime example would be the title of the story. The juniper tree, as both the title and a symbolism that plays a pivotal part concerning the birth and transfiguration of the boy, represents purification and protection. In Bible, the juniper tree is associated with Elijah, a prominent prophet is blessed by God, by offering him a place to rest, thereby establishing its significance as a sacred symbol (1 Kings 19:5-18, New American Standard Bible). At the beginning of the story, the wife’s praying to the tree in the garden alluded to Elijah’s invocation of death beneath the tree despite the wife’s yearning for a child rather than death. Thereafter, the juniper tree serves as a location where the bones of the boy metamorphose into a bird and retransmutes back into a boy in the end. In the tale, the boy attains a rebirth and the opportunity to revenge against his malevolent mother with the protection of the juniper tree, which is parallel to Elijah’s experience in receiving message from angel and reviving through sleeping and eating. In Bible, juniper tree can be seen as a liminal resting point between Elijah’s terrestial suffering and his celestial relief, while similarly, it functions as a connection between physical and spiritual world to the boy in The Juniper Tree (BYU). Moreover, the story revolves around a familiar theme of Good VS Evil. The boy seeks for his revenge as a form of a bird, which also indirectly draws connection to Bible. According to Christian symbolism, birds are often associated with Holy Spirit, ranging from the dove who carries an olive branch to Noah after the flood (Genesis 5:32-10:1, New International Version) to the Spirit of God manifested as a dove when Jesus is baptized (Matthew 3:13-17, NIV). Birds, particularly doves, are often considered as creatures of Higher Order. The link between the boy’s transfiguration and the religious connotations associated with birds suggests that the boy’s triumph in killing his mother before reaching a good ending is not deemed as disturbing and violence behavior but an act to express justice and execute divine punishment upon evilness. Furthermore, there are some sayings regarding the correlation between the boy and Jesus Christ. The boy reborns into the physical world through becoming a bird and gives reward to good people (his stepsister and father) while punishing the one who commited crimes, alluding to Jesus, who dies on the cross for people’s sins (Matthew 27:45-54, New King James Version) and resurrects afterward to forgive people(Luke 24, NIV). The boy’s ability to traverse between ordinary world and spiritual realm gives him the all-knowing and mighty quality that endows him with the power to allow the right rules to be enacted and the peace to be restored after chaos.
Another interpretation of The Juniper Tree suggests that it unconsciously reveals social and gender inequality in Early Europe, particularly in relation to family dynamics. During the time when the story was published and spread through different regions, patriarchal ideologies were widely accepted by the public. As a result, good women were often viewed as submissive and innocent, while bad women were portrayed as malicious and ugly(135-136, Jorgensen). The Juniper Tree depicts examples of both good and bad women. The negative character in the story is the woman with a flat and disturbing personality who values physical beauty over spiritual depth. She epitomizes the archetypal “fairy tale stepmother,” a reflection of traditional social attitudes towards women and a product of negative gender stereotypes. Similar to stepmothers in Cinderella and Snow White, the woman in The Juniper Tree engages in almost all of the violent behaviors, ranging from murdering her stepson to cooking him into a stew. She dies in the end as a result of her evil actions, serving as a moral lesson of righteousness and justice. As previously mentioned, The Juniper Tree is filled with religious symbolism. Prior to killing her stepson, the evil woman instructs him to get an apple, which can be interpreted as a reference to the biblical story of Adam and Eve (Genesis 2:4-3:24, NIV). Whether the snake who induces Eve to eat the apple or Eve herself should be the prototype of the woman is open to interpretations of readers, but it can be concluded that stereotypical evil female characters who play similar role as the woman contribute to an association of women in real life with unfavorable characters, thus cause people to have negative impression on them. One of the most puzzling parts of the story is the father’s role. The man is absent when the boy is being abused by the stepmother and fully enjoys eating his son during dinner, but his behaviors are forgiven and ultimately lives with rest of his family forever in the end. His role in the story adds more evidence to the fact that women were more easily to be disclosed to harsh criticisms for her misbehaviors, while men who conduct same level misindeeds are often pardoned for their actions. Except for the cruel stepmother and the absent father, there is one important character in The Juniper Tree, the boy’s stepsister Marlinchen. Even though being instructed to cook her brother, Marlinchen wipes when the boy is eaten up and hides the boy’s bones under the tree, thus gives an opportunity for the boy the seek for revenge. It seems like Marlinchen undergoes character development as transforming from a character who’s manipulated by other to an independent girl who retains her own conscience and resists against authority; nevertheless, she still falls into the catergory of “innocent and kind women”. Female characters who share Marlinchen’s traits are often young, inexperienced girl whose purity and guiltlessness often trigger a sense of compassion inside readers as the story continues. They don’t have any ability to fully mangage their lives, as Marlinchen in the story can not stop her mother from hurting the boy, nor has any chance to speak for their individual rights. Marlinchen’s intention to resist against her mother later gives more camera to her brother rather than herself and one of the only goals it achieves is to teach children that only good people can be rewarded instead of informing people of Marlinchen’s autonomy. If it is reality, they would be ordinary women who had limited life choices in the male-dominated society and were forced to conform to social expectations while maintaining their innocence and pure beauty (BYU).
In addition to the religious and family aspects, readers discuss more about the controversial violent content of the story. In The Juniper Tree, the boy was brutally abused and murdered by his stepmother, then was cooked into a meal, which was later consumed by his own father for dinner. All of these violent behaviors, commited by the stepmother, are recounted by the bird in a melodious song that attracts people of different ranks. In comparing and constrasting between the Grimms’ version of The Juniper Tree to other versions, it is apparent that these versions are somewhat different in their characters(some of them have female protagonists rather than male ones) and settings but all retain the violent content with some versions featuring more disturbing and explicit descriptions. According to a essay written to explain the connection between Grimms’ fairy tales and myths, each fairy tale “describe a passage which is necessary difficult, hampered by a thousand obstacles, preceded by apparently insurmountable trials, but one which ends happily in spite of everything” , further illustrates the inevitability of violent elements, which help to show virtues of the protagonist, and the value of perserverance and resilience in the face of difficulties. (47, Robert and Powel). In The Juniper Tree, all of the tortures which the boy endured serve the purpose of making the boy’s eventual victory more valuable and also make the story as well as the message it tries to convey remarkable in readers’ mind even though the violent content always make people feel uncomfortable. As mentioned in the first body paragraph, the physical pains which the boy endures offer him an opportunity to travel in between the spiritual world and the physical world and undergoes transfiguration so that he can implement his revenge. A researcher who studies Mikhail Bakhtin’s ideas wrote in her essay that The Juniper Tree reflects Bakhtin’s concept of grotesque, which explains how the grotesque body is the celebration of the cycle of life, giving positive meaning to birth and renewal while negative meaning to death and decay. As the boy’s birth is corresponding to seasons of a year, the murder and death he experiences in preparation of his rebirth is an essential part of his life cycle that fits the concept of grotesque. Among all of the violent acts, the father’s eating of the boy can also be seen as the consumption part of the concept, which is to show the biological like between the father and son(32, Bricker). Perfect the language