Victim of her Circumstances

In 1971, psychologist Phillip Zimbardo led an experiment known as the "Stanford Prison Experiment." In this experiment, a simulated prison was set up, and subjects were chosen randomly to either play the role of prison staff or prisoner. The only instructions they were given were to act according to their role.This led to disaster- even though the prison set-up wasn't real, some guards ended up violently abusing prisoners. The ethics of the Stanford Prison Experiment are certainly questionable, but there is lots to learn from it. 

The New York Times asserted that "Mae, then, is not a victim but a dull villain." In my opinion, this statement slightly oversimplifies the issue. I would restate their analysis to say: over the course of the novel, Mae becomes increasingly convinced that immoral actions against privacy are actually moral. To the world and to the readers, she is a villain; but in her own mind, she is a hero. Today, I will explain the factors that led Mae to believe so strongly in her immoral actions. 

Mae espouses the role that the company expects her to be: an activist against privacy. In the Stanford Experiment, there were several factors that allowed for such a dark outcome For one, the participants were isolated from anyone not participating in the experiment. Mae lives her entire life within the confines of The Circle, and only surrounds herself with Circle employees. By isolating herself from those who don't share The Circle's values, she never hears opposition to those values. This further ingrains those ideas into her mind as justifiable and right.

Additionally, the participants at Stanford knew that their experiment was being run by the prestigious scientist Phillip Zimbardo; thus, they have little reason to believe that anything they do could be immoral. In Mae's case, she is constantly reassured by the Circle higher-ups that her attitude against privacy is morally correct. This reassurance from people stronger, more influential, and wealthier than Mae completely eliminates any doubt from Mae's head that her anti-privacy attitude has any negative bearing. 

Overall, just like the Stanford Prison Experiment, Mae is a perfect example of what can go wrong in a "cult-like" situation. It is my strong suspicion that Dave Eggers is trying to point out where he sees our society might be headed. An increasingly globalized world will have increasingly similar ideas, which could effectively lead to a large-scale, real-world example of The Circle. This example reminds us of the importance of bipartisanship, and how uni-partisanship can lead to extreme ideas and a lack of moral evaluation. 

The Tear

Perhaps one of the smartest, funniest, and creative minds of our generation- comedian Louis CK- spit some fire in a conversation with Conan O'Brien:

"Underneath everything in your life there's that thing, that empty-forever thing, that acknowledges that it's all for nothing. It dawns on you: life is tremendously sad. So when it hits us when we're driving, thats why we text and drive! I was in the car and a Bruce Springsteen song came on. When I heard it, it gave me a like fall-back-to-school depression that made me really sad. I reached for my phone. Then I said, you know what, don't. Just stand in the way of the sadness, and let it hit you like a truck. I pulled over and I just cried." 

As someone with a long emotional history, I've learned that to deal with sadness, you must embrace it. This is unavoidable. Unfortunately, it's often our first instinct to run away from sadness when we first sense it. The faster you run, the more it will poke at you. The more it will tease you. The more it will convince you the opposite of the truth. The character Mae in The Circle learns to run away from her sadness through the use of technology, social media, and other various distractors. The more she attempts to "sew the hole" within her, the larger it grows. We will examine both the ways in which she avoids her depression, and the environment that allowed for this problem to arise. 

Throughout various points of the novel, it is mentioned how a "tear" opens up within Mae. While Dave Eggers never fully explains what this tear means, we can infer it to be Mae's dissatisfaction with herself; her deep inner sadness. Eggers describes the tear as "growing within her, opening quickly, a fathomless blackness spreading under her" (336). Rather than facing her sadness head on, Mae engages in various distractions such as checking "to see if Mercer's site was still down," pouring herself "far too much [sake]," and other online and social media-related activities (336). Mae finds that "the tear" will disappear after it visits for a while, only to return stronger. This implies that the activities that Mae uses to run away from the tear only perpetuate it more. This is perhaps Dave Egger's subtle way of hinting to us that we can only live with sadness once we embrace it.

It is worth noting that this defense mechanism isn't unique to Mae. In fact, we all use it to some extent. As long as someone is aware of when they're running away from their sadness and makes an effort to deal with it, they should be well-off. However, the environment in which Mae resides facilitates the growth of the tear. Everyone around her uses technology, social media, and every state-of-the-art thing in existence. Thus, she has a myriad of ways to avoid the tear. This defense mechanism is less Mae's "fault" and more a product of her surroundings.

The approach to mental health problems often seem counterintuitive. In fact, you might be surprised to hear that a therapist treating a patient with a phobia will often recommend that the patient expose themselves to their phobia. In the end, however, it makes sense; if we can accept the way things are, they will not surprise us. Sadness has a harder time overtaking us if we know it's coming.