Character Sketch: Nothing
By Janne Teller
“Nothing matters, I have known that for a long time. So nothing is worth doing, I just realized that.” (Teller 1). A person who says something like this must be suicidal. He must not want to live anymore if nothing matters in his life. He must try to tell other people that one day; we are all going to die, so why does it matter? Really, why does it matter? In order to find a meaning to life, you have to live life thinking that everything matters. As you live, you will find the meaning of life, but what if at a young age you decide that life has no meaning? What do you do then? In the novel, Nothing, by Janne Teller, suicidal Pierre Anthon seems to think that nothing matters in life, but when his classmates like Agnes try to make him change, they begin a search to find the real meaning of life.
Agnes was just a normal 7th grade girl. She got good grades, had a lot of friends, and got a long with most people, an average girl. But there was one person who neither she nor anyone in her 7th grade class could stand, and that was Pierre Anthon. Pierre was a depressed boy, realizing that “nothing matters” (3). He would sit in a plum tree every day picking at the plums while everyone else was in class.
The first major event in the story was when Agnes, as well as all of the other students, were beginning to get really mad with Pierre, so they decided to attempt to put an end to it. “That was when we understood we had to get Pierre Anthon out of that plum tree,” (11). Their first plan was to throw rocks at him until he came out of the tree, but when that failed, they had to think of something else. That was when they decided that they “have to prove to Pierre Anthon that something matters,” (29). The class together decided to give up one major thing in his or her lives that meant the most to them. People gave in items from fishing poles, to sandals, to diaries, a cross of Jesus, the body of a girl’s dead baby brother, the head of a live dog, the fingers of one of the boys, and even a girl’s virginity. As the people were tossing things onto the heap of meaning that meant the most to them, they were all dying a little inside. After putting their items on the heap of meaning, people “seemed to have been destroyed” (101). By the time that everyone was done putting in their most prized possessions, many of them were depressed and/or abused by parents for losing that item. “When finally he showed up again, he was black and blue and yellow and green all over, and his left arm was broken. He was not a good Muslim, his father had told him, and then he had beaten the life out of him” (101). Agnes, as well as all of the other kids, were beginning to feel as if there was no meaning of life anymore, since their most prized possessions had been stripped from them.
The second event that changes Agnes is when the public began to hear about what was going on with them and their heap of meaning. The last boy, Jon-Johan gave in his meaningful item, which happened to be his index finger. The group chose his index finger because he is always playing music on his guitar and you need all fingers in order to do that. Also, when the one girl was forced to lose her ‘innocence,’ Agnes guessed that Jon-Johan must have done something to her with that finger, and that is why she wanted it off so badly. As soon as they chopped off his index finger, Jon-Johan told on them, and then the police came to the heap of meaning. All of the kids were escorted home by a police officer, and the policeman gave their parents a letter of what they were doing, stealing, and chopping but with no explanation why. The students wanted people to know what was going on and why they were doing this, but they wanted to voice their opinion. Agnes was nominated to call the local newspaper and tell them exactly what happened as a ‘witness’ named “Hedda Huld Hansen” (161). She told the editor that “There’s a group of children who have been collecting all these, what are we to call them, objects, with the idea of finding meaning. Indeed, there’s supposed to be some kind of heap of meaning out there!” (163). The local news began running a story about the heap of meaning and the children, and after a few weeks, it was international news. Interviewers from Sweden, Norway, Scandinavia, and the United States came to write stories about them. “Then at last what looked like the entire world press descended on Taering and turned us all into something. And something was the same as someone. Regardless of what Pierre Anthon said. Everyone was impressed, everyone except Pierre Anthon.” (174) Pierre didn’t believe that the pile had any meaning to the world, but all of the students agreed that they were famous and getting press from it, so it had to be meaningful. They believed that this truly did that meaning. Everyone felt like they had found the meaning. Everyone but Agnes. She “only doubted a little tiny bit. We had won the struggle for the meaning, both at home and in the world’s press. The strange thing was that our victory ended up feeling like a defeat” (184). The heap was considered art now, selling for millions of dollars at art auctions in America. They said the heap was the meaning, and many believed it. But after the press died down, it didn’t seem to be the meaning anymore. Then, they finally realized that they sold the heap, not the meaning, and the meaning will always be with them.
Agnes changed a lot through the course of the novel, and in the end, the appeared more intelligent than ever. She began to realize that there is a meaning in life, but it’s not something you can just find, it is inside of you. “Meaning isn’t something you can sell. Either it’s there or it isn’t” (204). It’s not something that you can just find one day. The meaning of life is to just live life to the fullest, not to become famous or get a lot of money because Agnes is very aware of the lack of meaning that comes from becoming famous and losing that sense of meaning when they decide to sell the heap of meaning. It was not the heap that was the meaning; it was everyone’s stories inside of the heap that made the meaning. Everything in that heap had a special meaning in everyone’s life. “The future is what you make of it” (199) and that is the meaning of life. To life live and make your life that life that you want to live.
Agnes’s transformation teaches people that you really only get to live once, so you should make your life the best that it can be. You have the ability to decide your own life, to make your life meaningful. The meaning of life is not an object or something you should spend your whole life looking for. Instead, just live and the meaning of life will find a way to let itself in. “The meaning of life is not something to fool around with” (226).
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