preview

The Circle Theme Essay

Better Essays
Open Document
In the novel, The Circle, Dave Eggers creates a future society centered on money and power from digital innovation. Mae Holland, the determined protagonist from a humble beginnings, receives an opportunity to gain high status within the company but faces the challenge of managing the loss of her human privacy in a technologically advancing community. By applying ideas like technological determinism and McDonaldization to the Circle’s intrusive security measures and inauthentic interaction, Eggers draws a direct parallel to America’s modern society and forces the readers to question the possible dystopian implications of a technocentric culture. Through the character of Mae Holland, The Circle reflects the misconstrued value of modern…show more content…
In describing the two different jobs, Mae adopts the view of the technological determinist by outlining the work environments’ amenities and resources emphasizes the change in the lack of technology from her old job to the greater amount in her new position in the Circle. Rather than focusing on other potentially responsible external agents that a social constructivist might argue, Mae reveals how technological presence contributes to her overall perception of a company as innovative or not, much like a technological determinist would. Similarly, many business advertisements in America in the early twentieth century, “using the psychological concepts of association and suggestion...encouraged people to believe that technology, broadly construed, shaped society rather than the other way around...such technological pitches constituted a form of technological determinism that embedded itself deeply in popular culture” (Smith 13). Through the voice of Mae, Eggars mimics the way in which many individuals in America overgeneralize an area’s quality by attributing it solely to technological access based off the false notion of technological determinism. Along with technological determinism, Eggers also incorporates the American notion of McDonaldization. After given her new position as a
Get Access
Related
Get Access