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The Circle

by Dave Eggers

Discussion Questions

1. What messages (if any) is Eggers trying to get across? How successful is he?
2. How does Mae’s behavior during her first days at work foreshadow what happens to her over the course of the novel? In what ways is she an “ideal” employee of the Circle and its aims?
3. What aspects of Mae’s life at the Circle seem creepy or rub you the wrong way? What aspects of Mae’s life at the Circle do you like?
4. The wings of the Circle are named after different regions of the world and time periods, such as Old West, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, Machine Age, the Industrial Revolution. What do these names say about the company’s vision of historical innovation versus its future-looking work? Is there an inherent hierarchy in these names, despite their apparent equality?
5. What are people gaining by committing themselves to participating in all of the services the Circle has to offer? What are people losing?
6. Why do you think so many people are choosing to become a part of the Circle? What is so attractive about social media?
7. In what ways does Annie inspire and motivate Mae in terms of the level of success that can be achieved at the Circle? Does Mae consider Annie’s position the product of Annie’s own ambition, or something she imbibed from the company’s ethos? How does knowing first about their professional relationship shape your understanding of their shared past?
8. How do you think Mae would have been treated differently at the Circle if she wasn’t Annie’s friend? Would there even be a difference?
9. When Mae walks onto the campus she sees stones decorated with the following words: Dream; Participate; Find Community; Innovate; Imagine; Breathe. Why these words? How do they compare to the new phrases at the end of the book (Secrets are Lies; Sharing is caring; Privacy is theft)?
10. Mae’s first serious blunder on the job is failing to respond to and attend a social event, Alistair’s Portugal brunch. How does the meeting in Dan’s office set the tone for Mae’s pushing the Circle’s networks on others?
11. Among the Three Wise Men – Ty, Bailey, and Stenton – who has a vision of what the Circle can and should do that seems most viable? In the end, is this trifecta of power able to prevent tyranny? What might the conclusion of the novel say about man’s reaction to power even when humanity is apparently subsumed under technology?
12. Ty explains how the company has changed from its original start. Has its core values changed from when Mae started to the end of the book?
13. Bailey uses the phrase “All that happens must be known” when he is talking about the SeeChange video project and holding people accountable for their actions. This is a strong statement. In what ways do you agree or disagree with this phrase?
14. The bracelet provided by the health clinic is a remarkable technological feat and would revolutionize health care if it existed. Mae even finds it “beautiful, a pulsing marquee of lights and charts and numbers...[her] pulse represented by a delicately rendered rose, opening and closing”. But what does this additional form of self-monitoring, along with her three work screens, contribute to Mae’s true knowledge of herself? For example, does watching their pulses rise in anticipation of sex bring Mae and Francis closer together emotionally, or push them further apart?
15. It is both a curse and a blessing that Mae is able to provide her parents with health care: while her father is able to receive the MS treatment he desperately needs, Mae seems to benefit even more from her ability to share his story online through support groups and ultimately drives those groups away. Did you ever feel that her actions became more selfish than selfless, and if so, when?
16. We see Mae involved with three very different men throughout the novel: Mercer, Francis, and Kalden. While they are on the surface wildly different, what might you say are traits they share that reveal what Mae is looking for in a relationship – and how do they satisfy these needs in their own ways? Does Mae ever seem truly happy?
17. When Francis videos him and Mae being intimate, he says that that moment was his too and uses that part-ownership as permission to have the moment recorded. Is he implying that people can own events and moments in time? Can they? How does this connect with the direction the Circle is going and what does it stand for?
18. After her conversation with Dan about skirting her social responsibilities, Mae stays up all night to boost her PartiRank and “feels a profound sense of accomplishment and possibility”. She is equally ambitious with her CE satisfaction scores, getting the highest average of any employee on the first day. Why, then, is she so offended when Francis asks for a score on his sexual performance? Why is Mae so offended? Where is the line between public and private, and what does it mean that Mae eventually gives in to his request?
19. Does the Circle seem concerned with promoting and preserving traditional family life? In what ways does it threaten to replace biological families with a wider human family, including via transparency?
20. Why do you think Ty felt the need to disguise himself in order to reach out to Mae as he did? How necessary was it for him to preserve his role as one of the Three Wise Men, even as he sought to dismantle the institution he helped create?
21. Is Annie in any sense a martyr of the Circle’s mission? Did you ever feel as if you understood the motives behind her intense devotion to her job?
22. Mae’s friendship with Annie changed from the beginning of the book to the end. In what ways did it change? Why did it change so drastically?
23. What is the impact of having Mercer’s suicide seen by Mae through cameras – that is, indirectly? Do you think she genuinely believed she was trying to be his friend by launching the drones after him?
24. How has Mae changed from the beginning of the book to the end? How hasn’t she changed? Do you think Mae is a fully fleshed out character? Is her naivety believable, or is it just a mechanism to move the story along?
25. Many of the technologies the author invents in The Circle seem futuristic, but they are not so far from realities that exist now: myriad social media sites are obviously omnipresent, but the government is also developing facial recognition to screen for terrorists (The New York Times, August 20, 2013) and Google Glass seems not so unlike the camera necklace that allows for Mae’s transparency. After finishing the novel, did you find this overlap between fact and fiction unsettling? Did it affect how you personally engage with technology?