Sacrifice and Revenge: The Forces Behind 'Nothing' Anonymous 11th Grade

Throughout great works of literature, an underlying message helps to give depth to the story and allow the reader to take away a moral lesson from the story. In literature, this underlying message is often referred to as the theme of the story. Some pieces of literature have many themes, some only one. The novel Nothing by Janne Teller is of the former, as it possesses many themes. The themes of how revenge leads to friends doing awful things to one another and how sacrifice is necessary in order to achieve a goal or inspire change in a person. These two major themes help to develop the story as a whole by changing many events in the story and leading many characters into trouble. The two major themes of revenge and sacrifice in Nothing are necessary to give the story depth and meaning, while also contributing to the plot of the story as a whole.

The first theme of revenge is displayed many times during the story. As all the kids are beginning to give their own items up into the pile of meaning, their emotions begin to kick in and they start to attack one another, making someone else give up something bigger and more important than they did to get revenge on them. For example, when Agnes is made to give up her favorite pair of...