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Book III

Summary: Book III

Mae sits with Annie in the campus clinic where Annie lies comatose in a bed. Doctors suggest her coma was caused by benign stress or simple exhaustion, but it’s clear Annie has had a nervous breakdown. The doctors are confident Annie will come out of the coma since thousands of doctors across the world are monitoring her vitals along with them. As she sits by Annie’s bedside, Mae congratulates herself for having the strength, resolve, and loyalty to prevent the Circle from being destroyed. Feeling a sense of duty, Mae has told Bailey and Stenton about Ty’s masquerade as Kalden and his “misguided” attempts to derail the Circle’s goal of Completion. Bailey and Stenton have allowed Ty to stay on campus but with an isolated office and no specific duties. Mae hasn’t seen Ty since. She also hasn’t spoken to her parents in months.

Mae wonders what Annie is thinking and whether she is dreaming. For a moment, she feels annoyed by the fact that the doctors can’t tell what Annie’s brain is doing. Francis appears at the door and he and Mae exchange friendly waves. She knows they’ll meet up later at a campus-wide event to celebrate the most recent milestone in the Circle’s Completion—ten million people around the world have now gone transparent. Mae wishes Annie could be there since she helped make the milestone possible. Mae muses on how the completion of the Circle will bring peace, unity, and the end of all uncertainty. For a moment, she looks back at Annie, still frustrated no one can tell what’s on Annie’s mind. She thinks to bring this up with Stenton and Bailey, to discuss how they all deserve “nothing less” than to know what’s going on in Annie’s brain.

Analysis: Book III 

Mae’s eerie lack of emotion at the end of the novel becomes unsettling. Is she hiding from the cameras, or has she truly become anesthetized to the gravity of life and death? It is not clear. However, what is clear, is that the Circle’s influence on her is complete. She is now a full, card-carrying member of the Circle’s enclave.

It’s not clear what happens to Ty at the end of the novel, but it is suggested that Stenton and Bailey have him killed off. They give him an isolated office and reduce his responsibilities, and Mae never sees him. It’s ironic that Ty, the founder of the company, is effectively lopped off from his creation, indicating how ideas can take on a life of their own and can be co-opted to other ends beyond their original intent. Ty created TruYou for a simple purpose—to make one’s online experience more efficient. But this underlines how abstract ideas exist in a vacuum and morph and change when they’re applied in the real world.

Mae’s final thoughts about being irritated by not knowing what’s on Annie’s mind show just how far she has come to be uncomfortable with uncertainty. Being immersed in a world where everything is known, she’s become completely averse to, and uncomfortable with, uncertainty. Uncertainty is an unmistakable aspect of human existence and is part of the mysterious nature of the world, however. Earlier, when Mae refrains from disturbing the nest on the island in the bay, she does show an instinct to protect this aspect of life. Now, it’s uncertain she could connect to the same instinct, her mentality has become so ingrained by the ideology of full transparency. The Circle, like the shark, has been devouring everything in its path, including Mae.

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