payment page
Circe is born into a family life lacking in love or joy, and this turn of fate informs her life for the duration of the novel. Being part of a family of immortal beings who taunt and torment her for her physicality and her interests instills in Circe a sense of both not belonging and of longing. This is particularly evident when she meets her first mortal, Glaucos. The fact that she thinks she finds love in him reveals her own naivety. At this point of her life, Circe doesn’t understand what healthy love looks like, so, she’ll go out of her way to obtain anything that resembles it. The desperation underlying her acts of transformation for both Glaucos and Scylla reveal Circe’s inability to understand that love is a concept involving two parties and not just one. She cannot simply just change someone in order to make their love true. These actions resulting from Circe’s lack of a perceived loving family result not only in Circe’s exile to Aiaia but also in her overwhelming guilt for creating a true monster in her pursuit of love.
While in exile, Circe struggles with loneliness. While she may have endured a lonely childhood, her time alone on Aiaia serves to further compound her struggle. Because she is so starved for companionship, she leaves herself open to danger. She welcomes sailors to her island, but they return her hospitality by brutally raping her. This pivotal incident incites a change in Circe. She uses witchcraft to turn other sailors who come to her shores into pigs and slaughters them. In turn, she risks becoming the kind of brutal deity she has always hated. Meanwhile, she takes several lovers including Hermes, Daedalus, and Odysseus. These love affairs do not result in lasting satisfaction or an end to her isolation. However, her affair with Odysseus brings her son Telegonus into her life. His presence is a salve to her loneliness, at least until he reaches manhood.
When Telegonus grows up and wants to meet his father, Circe reluctantly supports his desire, resulting in Telegonus killing Odysseus accidentally and returning to Aiaia with Telemachus and Penelope. It is because of Telemachus that Circe realizes she does not want her immortality. She believes he sees her for who she truly is and might be the one person she’s ever met who will accept her. When Circe takes Telemachus with her to battle Scylla and tells him how she is responsible for the monster’s creation, he does not judge her. That acceptance leads her to share more of her history, including the assault that resulted in her turning numerous sailors into pigs and murdering many of them. Telemachus responds to all her confessions with love. Because of Telemachus, Circe at last learns to be at peace with herself and in the love she’s found with him. She makes a potion that she hopes will enable her to live a mortal life with Telemachus because she wants to continue to develop and evolve as a person, something she does not believe immortal beings have the capacity to do.
