How we cite our quotes: (Book.Section.Paragraph)
Quote #1
Another message appeared on her second screen, this one from Dan. Fantastic work, Mae! How you feeling? Mae was astonished. A team leader who checked in with you, and so kindly, on the first day? (1.6.145-46)
During her first days at the Circle, Mae Holland is thrilled to see how much everyone seems to care about her well-being. Right away, she feels so much more connected than she ever did at her old job.
Quote #2
Someone mentioned the usefulness of marijuana in alleviating glaucoma, and someone else mentioned it was helpful for those with MS, too, and then there was a frenetic exchange between three family members of MS patients, and Mae, feeling some darkness opening its wings within her, signed off. (1.13.4)
This passage signals the first of many episodes in which Mae Holland starts to experience a strange feeling. Despite being connected—through digital technologies—to millions of people worldwide, Mae sometimes feels as if she's looking down into a dark and terrible pit full of screaming souls. She doesn't feel connected in those moments. Instead, she feels distant and confused.
Quote #3
"It's not that I'm not social. I'm social enough. But the tools you guys create actually manufacture unnaturally extreme social needs. No one needs the level of contact you're purveying. It improves nothing. It's not nourishing. It's like snack food. You know how they engineer this food? They scientifically determine precisely how much salt and fat they need to include to keep you eating. You're not hungry, you don't need the food, it does nothing for you, but you keep eating those empty calories. This is what you're pushing. Same thing." (1.19.63)
According to Mercer Medeiros, the Circle isn't helping anyone by trying to make people more connected to one another. From his perspective, the Circle's technologies aren't capable of remedying feelings like isolation and loneliness—all they'll do is make people crave real connection even more.
Quote #4
"You know how you finish a bag of chips and you hate yourself? You know you've done nothing good for yourself. That's the same feeling, and you know it is, after some digital binge. You feel wasted and hollow and diminished." (1.19.65)
Whether or not you agree with him, Mercer Medeiros is The Circle's voice of reason—that is, the character whose point of view aligns most closely with the novel's own authorial perspective. Mercer is right: Mae Holland does feel wasted and hollow and diminished when she spends too much time online. Problem is, Mae never recognizes those feelings for what they really are.
Quote #5
Josiah made a sympathetic face, and Denise leaned forward. "But see, here's where it gets especially confusing. We don't know anything about this episode. Did you reach out to any Circlers during this crisis? You know that there are four groups on campus for staffers dealing with MS? Two of them are for children of MS sufferers. Have you sought out one of these groups?" (1.28.74)
Although Josiah and Denise are convinced that Mae Holland would have found it helpful to reach out to her fellow Circlers during her time of crisis, earlier passages in the novel suggest otherwise. The last time Mae encountered an online thread about people living with MS, it didn't comfort her. Instead, it made her feel as though "some darkness [was] opening its wings within her" (1.13.4).
Quote #6
And, with the tools the Circle made available, Mae felt able to influence global events, to save lives even, halfway across the world. That very morning, a message from a college friend, Tania Schwartz, came through, pleading for help with an initiative her brother was spearheading. There was a paramilitary group in Guatemala, some resurrection of the terrorizing forces of the eighties, and they had been attacking villages and taking women captive. (1.33.11)
As The Circle suggests, digital technologies don't just promise to connect us to one another; they can also help us to feel as though we're making a difference in the larger world. But how connected can we really get simply by pushing a button? Shmoop won't pretend to have all the answers. What are your thoughts?
Quote #7
Below the picture of Ana María was a blurry photo of a group of men in mismatched military garb, walking through dense jungle. Next to the photo was a frown button that said "We denounce the Central Guatemalan Security Forces." Mae hesitated briefly, knowing the gravity of what she was about to do—to come out against these rapists and murderers—but she needed to make a stand. She pushed the button. (1.38.12)
In The Circle, Dave Eggers suggests that Mae Holland overestimates the influence that her web activities have in the world. Mae doesn't feel isolated from the violence in Guatemala; she believes that she's playing an active role in bringing it to a halt. What does The Circle seem to think about that?
Quote #8
After Tania's petition Mae sat for a moment, feeling very alert, very aware of herself, knowing that not only had she possibly made a group of powerful enemies in Guatemala, but that untold thousands of SeeChange watchers were seeing her doing it. It gave her layers of self-awareness and a distinct sense of the power she could wield in her position. (1.38.13)
This is one of the most scathingly satirical passages in The Circle. The novel's tone makes it clear that Mae Holland has a very overinflated sense of her own importance if she really believes that she's made herself powerful enemies simply by sending a "frown." Although Mae doesn't feel isolated at all in this scene, the novel makes it clear that she's very far removed from the place where she thinks she's making a difference.
Quote #9
She sat up in bed, knowing that it usually took her an hour or so to make her way to sleep. She turned on the wallscreen, planning to check on her parents. But their SeeChange cameras were all dark. She sent them a zing, expecting no answer and getting none. She sent a message to Annie but got no response. She paged through her Zing feed, reading a few funny ones, and, because she'd lost six pounds since going transparent, she spent twenty minutes looking for a new skirt and T-shirt, and somewhere in the eight site she visited, she felt the tear opening up in her again. (2.3.5)
This is one of the scenes in The Circle when Mae Holland's feelings of loneliness and isolation come upon her in full force. Although Mae is now living "transparently," in constant connection with millions of viewers worldwide, she can't reach out and contact the most important people in her life.
Quote #10
She opened her eyes. She called her parents. No answer. She wrote to them, nothing. She called Annie. No answer. She wrote to her, nothing. She looked her up in the CircleSearch but she wasn't on campus. She went to Annie's profile page, scrolled through a few hundred photos, most of them from her Europe-China trip, and, feeling her eyes burn, she closed them again. And again she saw the rip, the light trying to get through, the underwater screams. (2.10.12)
It's curious that Mae Holland never puts two and two together to realize the cause of the disturbing visions that come upon her sometimes. What do you think about her extraordinary naivety, Shmoopers? Does it seem plausible, or is it way beyond the limits of probability?