Uprooted

Content Warning: This section includes discussion of death and graphic violence.

The tension between envy and self-acceptance is one of the major themes of the novel. That it is also a major element of Agnieszka’s coming-of-age narrative highlights the importance of self-acceptance to reaching one’s full potential.

Though Agnieszka is not initially aware of her dissatisfaction with herself or jealousy of others, her descriptions of Kasia hint at her feelings. She describes Kasia as beautiful, clever, brave, and kind, even acknowledging that her words make Kasia “sound like something out of a story [like] the spinning princess or the brave goose-girl or the river-maiden” (5). Meanwhile, Agnieszka describes herself as a “too-skinny colt of a girl with big feet and tangled dirt-brown hair” (6), who is clumsy, wild, and somehow always dirty. She constantly compares herself to Kasia and finds herself wanting, though her association of Kasia with various mythologized heroines implies that her view of her friend is not entirely accurate.

Agnieszka is not aware of her feelings of envy until Kasia’s mother, Wensa, accuses her of jealousy in Chapter 8. Even then, she does not truly believe it until she and Sarkan perform

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