What is the significance of a circle?

Circles are everywhere. I didn't realize until I started looking, just how many circles I encounter everyday. It starts with little things. I wake up and put on my circular contact lenses, then go downstairs to eat some food off a circular plate. After I get ready, I turn some circular doorknobs, say hello to the circular sun, and get into my car with its circular tires. Then I drive off to school with my circular steering wheel. I could go on all day, but I'd end up talking myself in circles.

The circle is the most ubiquitous shape, symbol, or idea that has been instilled in humanity since ancient times. It represents everything. Our world, our sun, our moon, our stars, and even other worlds. Since I can't possibly discuss all of these symbols and connections in one blog post, let alone one lifetime, I'm going to discuss some of the few circular associations that I made with The Circle, and that Mr. Eggers may have had in mind when creating the idea for this book.


Equality

Circles are never-ending. No beginning, no end. This perfect shape lasts forever, and within this eternal ring, lies perfect equality. Every point on a circle is an equal distance from the center. Nothing stands out, and nothing is unfair. That's what The Circle strives for as well. Equality through knowledge, for everyone.

Everyone is equal here.

Unity/Exclusion

Correction, for everyone within the circle. While a circle represents equality, it can only do so by encircling a space, and excluding everything outside of it. Circles have been used historically as a form of protection from evil. No evil can cross the sacred line of a circle. Circles unify, and gain strength from the unity formed through equality. But this comes at the expense of exclusion. Anything or anyone outside the circle is lost from this protection and excluded from the community. This was the case in The Circle as well. Anyone who refused to be "in the loop,"-- anyone who didn't have a "circle of friends"-- was excluded from society. To the extreme, they were ultimately choked by the tightening of The Circle.

A magical anti-evil circle.

Poor guy, he doesn't fit in the circle.

Revolution

When we think of something "coming full circle," we often think of it as being right where it started. And when we think of a revolution, we think of dramatic change. But a revolution is the action of coming full circle. Think of the Earth, spinning on its axis in revolutions around the Sun. Every day, it starts the day facing the same direction, and every year, it ends up in the same spot. But through these days and years, so much changes dramatically. And in order for the planet to return where it once was, it must go through the cycle again. This is just like Kalden's realization in The Circle. He recognizes that the key to a better society isn't through a total upheaval of old ways and morals, but through changes that incorporate the qualities that made society strong to begin with, like the protection of privacy.

Life Cycles

Revolution is seen in life cycles as well. A tadpole turns into a frog, which lays eggs, which turn into tadpoles. In The Circle, Mae experiences a similar kind of transformation. She starts out as a newcomer to the Circle society, one who doesn't even see the importance of having a Circle account. But as she is exposed to the influences of people like Annie, Bailey, and her other co-workers, she begins to make the transition into a real Circler. As Mae gains popularity, she eventually overshadows Annie, and becomes a symbol of leadership at the Circle. Mae completes her circle of transformation when she imposes the Circle's beliefs on her parents and Mercer, in an attempt to plant the same seeds in their minds.

This is Mae, as a frog.

Knowledge

While there are an unending number of other connections that can be drawn about circles, the last one I'll discuss is calculus. Not just calculus, but math and science in general, derive so heavily from circles. Trigonometry, derivatives, integrals, limits, the Golden Ratio, even rectangles and triangles, all come back to the properties of circles. And it is through these very tools of mathematics that we know all that we do today. Architecture, nature, technology, space exploration, theoretical physics, biology. Everything relies on circles, and they are in every part of our lives, whether we recognize it or not. In The Circle, this is the ultimate goal: knowledge of everything. Just like circles are such an important part of our universe, it is The Circle's mission to infiltrate every part of society and every individual, in order to unlock the answers of the universe.

Conclusion

I don't know what Dave Eggers was thinking as he came up with the ideas behind The Circle. I can't know if he planned out all of the symbolism and underlying meanings that I discussed here. But it's clear that his decision to choose a circle as the symbol for his ideas was well thought out. I haven't even skimmed the surface of all the other possible connections that could be drawn. There are connections in literature (as seen in Seth's post about the circles of hell in The Inferno), religion, history, art, science, and in every part of our daily lives.

--Sanjukta