The Circle Mae Character Analysis

Is privacy a thing of the past? Has communicating over the internet replaced human connection? Mae, the protagonist in the Dave Eggers novel The Circle, discovers how different her life can be without privacy after beginning work for the large internet company the Circle. Truman, of Peter Weir’s The Truman Show, a man whose whole life has been set up, captured and broadcast for the whole world to see, also discovers his lack of privacy and tries to put an end to it. Mae does not find her life to be strange until people bring it to her attention, and even then, she does not accept the fact that it is potentially life ruining. Truman, slowly starts to understand how strange his life really is and wants to be free of it. Mae no longer is capable …show more content…
With its vast campus, hundreds of daily activities and all-knowing ability, it appears to be the epitome of success. Despite its growing power, it is slowly creating its own downfall. Immediately as Mae pushes through the front doors, she is greeted by a worker at the company, Renata. Barely getting out five words, Renata knows who she is, “You must be Mae.” (3) and what she is looking for, “Annie, I know.” (3) before Mae is capable of introducing herself. This was the first moment in the book where you notice how everybody there knows everything. It seems like an almost normal exchange until it makes you realize what the Circle is capable of. Already, Mae has been minorly exploited and the trend does not stop here. She goes further to make herself “transparent”, giving up all her privacy for the sake of the company. She is no longer able to have connections with people who don 't want their whole lives shared for everyone to view. “She wanted to talk to Annie, but she knew she couldn’t…. her parents who would give good counsel but their house was transparent, too,…” (325) This is showing how the lack of privacy is Mae’s life is ruining relationships for her. Her friends and parents do not want their business shared throughout the whole world. In The Truman Show, Seahaven Island has been home to Truman Burbank his whole life. He has never stepped foot off the island nor was he allowed to. The town of Seahaven seems too perfect to be true with …show more content…
The only thought running through Mae’s mind is about Annie and “the thoughts she was thinking.” (497) Mae lacks the common feeling of sadness or sympathy and only thinks about a way to get all of Annie’s great thoughts out to a bigger audience. She has fully exploited her life, her family’s life and Annie’s past, and now she wants to share comatose Annie’s thoughts as well. She has yet to understand that not all things are worth sharing. The final scene of The Truman Show is quite different. Truman finally escapes his warped reality and exploitation. He is finally free and no longer has to be under the control of the Creator. Once he leaves, it makes you understand how small Truman’s world is and how public his life is as well. He differs from Mae because though both trapped in their false reality, he is happy and willing to leave despite being told that the outside world is not safe unlike Seahaven. “But in my world you have nothing to fear.” The Creator is trying to make Truman stay on the show instead of creating a life of his own. Mae is stuck in the Circle’s trap and does not want to leave or think otherwise. Each of these two characters are stuck in worlds lacking privacy yet only one chooses to relieve themselves of this