Manipulation is another one of those ever present ideas throughout the book. I found a scary example of how The Circle directly manipulates Mae on pages 272-276.
On these pages, Mae depicts an incident in which is stops by a kayak rental shop, of which she is a regular member, after hours and takes a kayak out for a ride. She went for a ride and then upon her arrival, was arrested for theft. Mae clearly didn't have intentions of stealing the kayak, and when the owner of the shop, Marion, arrived on the scene, he vouched for her and she was released. However, officials at The Circle found out about this incident and were very upset with her actions. Dan, who was interrogating Mae about what happened, ultimately manipulated her own views about herself and what she had done throughout their conversation.
Once they first begin talking, Mae believes that what she did was harmless and nothing more than a misunderstanding. "But there were no charges," she protested. "Marion cleared everything up." She continues to defend herself, and it is quite clear to the reader that Mae has done nothing wrong. Dan continues to say things to Mae, such as, "This is very serious stuff." and "It's pretty obvious you knew you were doing something wrong." After all of this and going through video footage of what she did, Maes view about the incident totally changed. "Mae's head echoed with self-denunciations. She hated who she was. How could she have done that, risked her job? Embarrassed her best friend? Jeopardized her father's health insurance? She was an Imbecile."
Reading this is almost scary. It makes the reader very aware of how powerful The Circle is and how they are able to manipulate all of their employees.
What do you guys think of this? What other parts of the book do you feel demonstrate this manipulation?
There are many instances throughout the novel where Mae's thoughts are manipulated. The part that struck me as scary, was when The Circle finds out that Mae went kayaking. Since Mae failed to "Zing" about her kayaking experience, The Circle is not happy with her.
ReplyDelete"How do you think other Circlers feel, knowing that you're so close to them physically, that you're ostensibly part of a community here, but you don't want them to know your hobbies and interests. How do you think they feel?"
"I don't know. I don't think they'd feel anything."
"But they do!" Josiah said. "The point is that you're not engaged with the people around you!"
"It's just kayaking!" Mae said, laughing again, trying to bring the discussion back to a place of levity.
Josiah was at work on his tablet. "JUST kayaking? Do you realize that kayaking is a three-billion-dollar industry? And you say its 'just kayaking!' Mae, don't you see that it's all connected? You play your part. You have to PART-icipate."
"Denise was looking at Mae intensely. "Mae, I have to ask a delicate question."
"Okay," Mae said.
"Do you think...Well, do you think this might be an issue of self-esteem?"
....."After the interview, at her desk, Mae scolded herself. What kind of person was she? More than anything, she was doing the bare minimum. She disgusted herself..."
After Mae's bosses finished interrogating her, she was truly convinced that she was in the wrong for not posting about her kayaking experience online for everyone to see. This also shows how she begins to lose her sense of identity, along with her self-esteem.
Its as clear as day, manipulation is a huge part of this book without a doubt. Michaela, im glad you brought up how the Circle was not happy with Mae when she went kayaking because it not only shows how Mae is being manipulated by The Circle, but also shows how they don't want their employees seeing what the real world is like almost. Obviously Mae knows what the real world is like however, The Circles wants to limits their employees' time outside of work as much as possible. This reminds me of Google too in that they "run" their employees lives and intentionally make it very hard to leave once you're in. This is a very important part to the novel, it essentially makes the story possible.
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