The Circle: Symbols | SparkNotes

Symbols are objects, characters, figures, or colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.

The Shark

Stenton has the shark placed in the aquarium tank on the Circle campus as a special attraction. The shark is a draw since its body is completely transparent and everything it eats can be seen. Mae is there to watch its first feeding and to record it with her webcam. The shark is a symbol for Stenton. Early in the novel, Annie refers to Stenton’s corporate background, referring to him as a shark (someone who is unscrupulous). However, the shark also symbolizes the Circle itself, which promotes the idea of “transparency” and making one’s every move known to others as a moral example. The irony of the shark is that the shark’s transparency only makes its primal motive to kill that much more apparent. Once the shark is dropped into the tank, it goes about killing and devouring everything in its path with lightning precision and efficiency. If Stenton hoped to use the shark as a model for transparency, the “message” gets lost by the shark’s shocking and “unexpected” behavior.

“Reaching Through for the Good of Humankind” Sculpture

Mae stands in front of a new, fourteen-foot-high plexiglass sculpture recently installed at the Circle called “Reaching Through for the Good of Mankind” to introduce the work to her viewers. The sculpture shows a massive hand reaching out from a computer screen. The sculpture is satirical, however. While the Circlers take it as a symbol of technology’s “helping hand,” the artist’s troubles with the Chinese communist government imply that the sculpture is a symbol of the overreaching presence of technology in the public’s lives. Mae, unaware of the irony, instructs her viewers to send frowns to the government there in support of the artist, the author’s nod to how tech can be tone-deaf to art.

The Nest

After Mercer goes on a tirade insulting Mae’s involvement at the Circle, calling her life “boring,” Mae heads out to kayak to decompress. This time, she arrives at the rental place after hours so she “steals” a lone kayak she sees leaning against the fence. Mae’s rage has emboldened her. She even paddles to a remote island hardly visited to explore. While there, Mae climbs the rugged peaks of the island, refreshed by the idea that she has taken a risk and has gone off the beaten path. She spots a nest in a tree, and is tempted to investigate it, weighing the risks of peeking into it to see its contents for “just a second.” Yet Mae decides to refrain, realizing that she’d “ruin whatever was inside” the nest if she disturbed it. Here, the nest represents the mysteries in life, which have become fewer in Mae’s life now that she’s part of a conglomerate hoping to make “everything known.” The fact that Mae stops herself from disturbing the nest suggests that on some level, she realizes the implications of “completing the Circle” and routing out any uncertainty in life is harmful and counterproductive.

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