Mae sucks, Part V (The Final Installment)

Though I'm kind of glad that our Circle blogs are coming to an end, I do have to admit that I will miss crapping all over Mae. I picked the third prompt from our final Circle post assignment because I'm glad that a some at the Times agrees with me that Mae isn't the typical protagonist. The Times review actually says that, ultimately, “Mae, then, is not a victim but a dull villain.” I've already talked about how Mae is very dull, so we agree on that point, but I never actually thought of Mae as a villain or a victim. In this post, I'd like to talk about how Mae isn't a victim and also about how she's kind of a villain, but not truly a villain.

So, the first question is: is Mae a victim? 

The answer is simple and obvious; no, she is not a victim. Though she is harmed (she loses her sense of humanity, her friends, her parents, her ex, and her only significant lover) she is the agent of her own undoing; she would be a victim if the Circle had taken her in and trapped her, if it had forced her to live there and ingrain herself in the texture of the company, if it had forced her hand on any of the terrible decisions she makes. However, she, of her own free will, makes all of the terrible decisions. Though the Circle may influence her decisions to some degree, she ultimately makes the final choices. Simply, she is not a victim.

So, if she isn't a victim, is she a villain? 

Yes, but she's a pretty crappy villain. A villain is defined as someone or something that constitutes an important evil agency in the plot of a novel. Mae isn't even the true villain in The Circle. She is just the face of the true evil, which is the Circle itself. 

Mae would be a true villain if she wasn't so damn ignorant. If she was conscious of the monopolization of almost everything by the Circle, and still continued to help the company further its goals, she might be an interesting character. There would be some opportunity to analyze why she would do such a thing; does she have an interesting backstory, a point in time event that drives her to such nihilistic ends? 

But we can't ask these questions because she isn't interesting, she isn't aware of the Circle's ultimate goals, and she doesn't consciously decide to mess up the world. She just ends up doing it because she's a coward who's afraid of being insignificant, and the Circle allows her to be significant while also using her to further its own goals.

You might have noticed, as I did, that the end of The Circle is significantly different than the bulk of the text before it. So, what is the significance of Eggers' choice to depart from novelistic conventions in Book III of The Circle? 

The abrupt ending signifies the speed with which the Circle closed. The contrast between the length of Book III and the length of previous sections of the book represents the stark difference between Mae prior to Book III and Mae throughout Book III. She has become totally brainwashed (she has the nerve to think Annie's lack of sharing, due to her comatose state, is selfish!). There is also a lot of Circle doctrine in Mae's account of what happens during Book III, showing her total immersion. 

To conclude, I'm very excited about the movie version of The Circle to be released in 2017. I can't wait to see how they portray Mae; will they keep her as she is, a dull puppet of an essentially omnipotent supercompany? Or will Emma Watson unintentionally make Mae a likable character? Who knows? I'm looking forward to it, and I hope you are, too.