Sitting up in a plum tree announces the 13 year old Pierre Anthon, “From the moment you are born, you start to die.” Pierre has decided that life has no importance. Therefore he is in the training to become part of nothing. This outlandish novel Nothing, by the Danish author Janne Teller, makes the reader doubt themselves and think about life. Pierre is the protagonist of this novel although he is not as physically present in the book as the other characters. A role model is someone looked at as an example to others on how to live or do something. Pierre is not in any way a good role model because he has just given up. As he pointed out life does not have any purpose, but instead of trying to make something of it he does nothing. A good role model would be a person who makes the best out of life. This is important especially to the characters in this book since they are all seventh graders who are started to find themselves and figure what life is all about.
Throughout the whole book Pierre Anthon is in the unconscious minds of his fellow classmates since the first day of school when he left the classroom to never come back, because there is simply no point in effort. In simplest terms Pierre is characterized as confident as well as arrogant. This is proven in the way he treats his peers. Sitting high up on a plum tree gives Pierre a sense of power, looking down at everyone throwing plums. He believes he is right and that everyone else is just lower, foolish, and too ignorant. When talks to them Pierre has a rude, or pushy, of doing it. For example when he says, “If something's worth getting upset about, then there must be something worth getting happy about. And if something's worth getting happy about, then there must be something that matters. But there isn’t!.. In a few years you'll all be dead and forgotten and diddly-squat, nothing, so you might just as well start getting used to it!” This shows that he is telling them that what they think is important really is not, and they are just wasting their time. However in the bigger picture Pierre practices in nihilism. Nihilism comes from the Latin word nihli meaning nothing. As its translation nihilism is the practice of believing that life does not have importance so why bother play along with society and just prepare for death and become nothing. Though Pierre may seem negative, he has no intention to be mean or negative. He simply believes in nothing. He is just another little bit of nothing in a whole world of nothing. This character can be compared very well to Siddhattha Gotama, aka the Buddha. Pierre is following the pattern of Gotama when sitting by a tree doing nothing, eating nothing (except for some plums of course), drinking nothing, and excreting nothing. He simply sits there becoming one with nature, or in this case nothing, waiting for death. He refuses to change, even the plum tree goes through changes for example in winter it no longer produces plums for Pierre to through down. Sacrifice is the most significant theme in the novel. Pierre Anthon has a great influence on his peers even if they do not want to admit to it. His pointing out of the nothingness of life angered the 13 year olds because of their fear on the unknown and questioning life. This results in the children deciding to prove Pierre wrong by sacrificing what they love most. Starting out as simply loved sandals, the story takes an alarmingly twisted turn. It starts getting disturbing when a girl is forced to sacrifice her living hamster, then stealing Jesus from the church, going further to chopping off a finger and a dogs head, and finally a young seventh grade girl’s virginity. Sacrificing all these loved possessions gives the children a feeling of accomplishment of proving Pierre wrong. All this while Pierre does not regard their sacrifices until it became serious and a girl started going insane. This all leads to the if question