The Skeleton Tree

In the cabin, the boys find a book entitled Kaetil the Raven Hunter, which charts the life of a human boy raised by ravens. The story is cheesy, with ridiculous descriptions of violence and a ludicrous plot. It’s exactly what the boys need to escape their reality and get lost in story, and they love it. As a motif, the book helps explain the idea of living with uncertainty. It tells of how the raven helps the boy become a fierce warrior to seek revenge for his parents’ murder. In parallel, the raven Thursday aids Chris in becoming a survivalist. In the book, ravens have medicinal abilities, while in the forest Thursday uses herbs to heal Frank’s wounds. Finally, in the book the raven leads a pack of wolves to battle, while in the forest Thursday leads wolves to defend Chris against a grizzly bear attack. These parallels create uncertainty about whether Thursday has these abilities because cabin guy read the book aloud, whether Thursday is merely a raven and Chris is an unreliable narrator who conflates memories from the book with real events, or whether Thursday really has these near-magical abilities, as all ravens might. Whatever the case, the lack of clarity creates uncertainty.

It is fitting, then, that Frank rips out the last page of the book before they read it. He doesn’t want to know how the story ends, because this way, he claims, is more real. Real life, Frank suggests, is rife with uncertainty and unanswered questions. For example, the boys will never know whether their father died by suicide or the car crash was really just an accident. Not knowing and living with the uncertainty becomes central to the boys’ shared coping methodology in dealing with their father’s death. They find peace in not knowing, just as they do in not knowing how Kaetil’s story ends and in accepting Thursday’s abilities without knowing their origin.