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Chapter 14
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Circe, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Power, Fear, and Self-Preservation
Women, Power, and Misogyny
Change, Initiative, and the Self
Mortality, Fragility, and Fulfillment
Family and Individuality
Summary
Analysis
Circe scours the entire hall and scrubs herself clean, but nothing washes away the feeling of the captain’s hands. She waits for Helios to come, sure that he will be enraged at either the abuse she just suffered or the fact that she killed so many men with magic. But he doesn’t appear. Her thoughts turning toward her family, she is dully surprised that she wasn’t raped sooner—many of her uncles used to grope her. She is certain that had one of them offered to pay her father for her, he would have accepted.
Circe is traumatized by the rape and scrubs herself in an effort to feel clean, but it doesn’t help. She keeps expecting Helios to show up, but he never does, which shows how little he cares about his daughter. Circe is realizing that her father never had any interest in her well-being and only cares about his own power. In retrospect, she knows that Helios would have probably sold her to her uncles for them to sexually assault her, had he ever had the chance. The fact that Circe’s uncles used to grope her also shows how men in ancient Greece are very cavalier in abusing the women in their lives.
Themes
More ships come bringing more men. Circe isn’t sure what caused the change, but she wonders whether word got out that there is an island of unsupervised nymphs. Circe acknowledges that she could have cast a spell to disguise her island from mortal eyes, but she feels that it is too late: people know of Aiaia, and she will have men know that “the world is not as they think.”
Circe believes that people are now coming to Aiaia because they hope to assault the nymphs who live there. Without any male figure on Aiaia to punish the attackers, the island appears (to the men) to be an unsupervised opportunity to take advantage of women. The men see women as inherently weaker than they are, so they don’t fear any consequences for their actions. Circe decides to keep her island available for men to stop at so that she can disprove their notions that women are helpless objects that men can use for their own pleasure. Essentially, Circe wants to continue demonstrating her power to the men who would assault her, so that she can prove to them (and to herself) that she is not weak. Of course, even though she can transform some men, such individual transformations will not rid the world of the abuse that women suffer. In this way, Circe’s magic is limited.
Themes
Very few groups of men go untouched by Circe’s power. When she is sure of their honesty, she feeds them; ad if one of them catches her eye, she has sex with him, as though to prove to herself that she still owns her body. But the encounters always leave her feeling filthy and full of rage, anxious for when she can next transform men.
Circe occasionally has sex with a man to prove to herself that she still has power and control over her body, feelings that were torn away when the captain from the first ship raped her. But she doesn’t enjoy the sex that she chooses to have, possibly because it doesn’t lessen the trauma that she experienced, nor does it make her feel any more comfortable with men. Additionally, it is possible that the men she sleeps with aren’t doing so consensually, as they may not feel comfortable turning her—a powerful witch—down. In this way, Circe would be guilty of participating in the same system of power imbalance and abuse.
Themes
Circe gets accustomed to the routine of the men’s visits. She feeds them, bringing more food when they demand it. After the feasting, their eyes stray greedily to her fine furnishings. Then the leader—there is always a leader—asks if she really is alone. When she confirms her solitude, the man, assured now that no male relative will track him down for vengeance, strides forward. This is her favorite moment, when the men expect fear but she shows none. She speaks the word of power, and the men transform into pigs; she always saves the leader for last.
The men never assume that Circe is the head of the house; they are always expecting a male presence. And as soon as they find out that she is alone, they move to attack her. To them, a woman without a man is weak and vulnerable, and therefore available for them to abuse. Their desire to assault women is rooted in their desire to display and exercise power over someone else. It is for this reason that Circe loves the moment when they are surprised that she doesn’t show any fear—their expectations are flipped, as she is actually the one with power. She likely saves the leader for last so that he can experience the most fear.
Themes
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After the men are all swine, Circe confines them to a pen. When she walks past them, she thinks she can see the apologies in their eyes. But she knows that they are only sorry that they misjudged her and are paying the consequences for their assumptions. Once in a while, a pig escapes and casts himself from a cliff into the sea. Had it been a man, Circe muses, she might have felt sorry.
Circe’s trauma deadens her empathy for others. She wants the men to feel afraid and she has no pity for them when they die. The men, having broken Circe’s trust, have made her isolate herself further from the joy of genuine interpersonal connections.
Themes
At one point, an unidentified man asks Circe why she chose pigs as the form of transformation. She considers the question, knowing that it is tied to the moment when she the captain pinned her, and she was unable to speak. She thinks of how the men must feel in their new pig bodies: humiliatingly clumsy, covered in muck, and yearning for their hands. She often tells the pigs to find the advantages in their new form, like their sturdiness or their clever minds behind dull faces. They never seem to appreciate her speech, and she inwardly concludes that “men make terrible pigs.” To the man, she simply says that he will have to live without knowing why. Then she acknowledges that she is ahead of the narrative.
Circe turns the men into pigs so that they feel helpless and humiliated, though she implies that “men make terrible pigs” because they are not clever like pigs are. Most of men’s strength, she suggests, lies in their hands, which they use to control others by force. As pigs, they do not have the physical dexterity or power that they are accustomed to, which Circe is sure is an extra point of pain for the men. Additionally, given Circe’s previous descriptions of their greed, it is likely that she also chose pigs because they are often associated with gluttony and filth.
Themes
Another ship arrives, but the sailors wait three days before they come to her door. When Circe greets them, she sees that they are a ragged group. The routine plays itself out, although now Circe turns the men into pigs before any of them have the time to step toward her. Just as Circe and her nymphs are rearranging the hall, one of her nymphs informs her that another, grizzled man is approaching her house.
At this point, Circe is so disillusioned that she turns the men into pigs before they even do anything wrong. She, like so many of her family members, perpetuates the cycle of violence and abuse, pitilessly transforming the men simply to show off her own power. She uses her power to make other people suffer so that she can feel in control, which is exactly what her family members do. For example, this is what Pasiphaë did with her magic when she turned Minos’s semen into poisonous creatures that killed the girls he raped in front of her. By transforming all the men who arrive on her island, Circe also further isolates herself. In this way, men’s attacks on women lead to their alienation.
Themes
When the grizzled man arrives at Circe’s house, he informs her that his crew has recently sought out her aid, and that he hopes to do the same. Circe smiles and welcomes him. She brings him wine and food as usual, and she is surprised to see that his gaze falls on the upended chairs in the hall, and not on her furnishings. As she sits down with him at the fireplace, he admires her loom. Circe is shocked; not a single one of the countless men she has greeted has ever mentioned Daedalus’s loom. The man continues to praise the design, mentioning that his wife is a talented weaver, and he would love a picture of it to bring back to her. The mention of his wife is equally jarring to Circe; none of the former men mentioned one.
The man is clever to draw Circe into conversation. This both gives him more time to strategize and also shows off his charming character, which may dissuade Circe from being so quick to thoughtlessly transform him. By mentioning his wife in a loving way, he also communicates that he has respect for a woman, something that none of the earlier men have expressed.
Themes
The grizzled man continues to speak warmly of his wife, at one point mentioning that she runs their home like a “regent.” Hearing this word, Circe knows that he is not just a pirate or an average sailor. The man begins to speak of his crew, how they are in shabby shape after ten years of war. Circe asks what the war was about, and he lists of several vices, such as hubris, vanity, and power. Circe jokes that the war’s causes sound like the reasons for the dramas of the gods. The man laughs, adding that she, as a goddess, may say such things, but he must thank the gods who aided him instead.
The man is aware that Circe is a goddess, which suggests that someone informed him of Circe’s identity prior to his arrival. Following the man’s description, the quest for power was a major cause for the extremely long and brutal war, which is more evidence of how power leads to violence and cruelty.
Themes
As the conversation continues, Circe sees that the grizzled man is a clever conversationalist who often makes jokes at his own expense. Yet as they talk, Circe notes that the man still hasn’t sipped the spiked wine. When she points out that he must not like her wine, he asks after his crew, wondering aloud where they could be. Locking eyes with the man, Circe realizes that he has not been tricked.
Most of the people that Circe has met are so proud and intent on appearing powerful that they would never talk poorly of themselves, even as a joke. The man, however, frequently makes jokes at his own expense, which demonstrates his cleverness. His charisma disarms people and make him seem less threatening, which he can use to his advantage. Circe is intrigued by the man—he is quite novel to her.
Themes
At last, Circe tells the grizzled man that although he has been wise to not drink the wine, she is still the more powerful of the two. He does not show fear but tells her he wishes for them to settle things peacefully. Hearing the hum that she often feels when among her magical herbs, she asks the man whether he carries moly, and he says yes. Thinking of how familiar Hermes is with Circe’s island, she realizes that Hermes must have given some of the flowers to the man. Remembering the prophecy Hermes had told her long ago, Circe tells the man that she believes that he is Odysseus, to which he responds that she is Circe.
As Hermes mentioned to Circe years ago, Odysseus is descended from Hermes. Hermes’s helpful involvement in Odysseus’s life likely has nothing to do with their being family, since that doesn’t usually inspire kindness in gods. It’s more likely that Hermes wants to help Odysseus in his endeavors so that if Odysseus achieves glory, then Hermes (as his ancestor) can claim some of that fame for his own.
Themes
Circe is thrilled to hear Odysseus say her name and she tells him that very few men knew who she is. Odysseus replies that “Most men […] are fools.” Circe then tells Odysseus that they are at a stalemate: he has moly, and she has his men. She suggests a test, which piques Odysseus interest—she can see that he likes challenges. Attracted to him and his wit, she implies that they will find trust by having sex. Odysseus responds that sex would require him to part with the moly, leaving him vulnerable to attack. He proposes that she swear an oath to not hurt him, which she does.
Circe has been feeling alone for so long that she is delighted to hear someone call her by her name, a simple act that nonetheless makes her feel acknowledged. Additionally, Odysseus intrigues her, so she proposes that they have sex to find trust. This is a significant offer, given that a man’s sexual violation of Circe is what broke her trust in men. Her deal with Odysseus has the symbolic implication that by sleeping with Odysseus—a man she respects and enjoys—on her own terms, she is rebuilding her ability to trust men.
Themes
