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The Shark
At work, Mae Holland is required to wear a headset, which prompts her to answer survey questions all day long. When she doesn’t answer a question, Mae hears a voice in her headset: it’s her own voice, saying her own name, in order to remind her to continue her task. At first, Mae finds the headset to be uncanny, but she gradually comes to find it soothing. The voice in Mae’s headset symbolizes the way that the Circle, and social networking in general, transforms people into docile, obedient servants.
The Voice Quotes in The Circle
The The Circle quotes below all refer to the symbol of The Voice. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Book One, part 7
Quotes
The extra layer of the CircleSurveys helped distract Mae from thinking about Kalden, who had yet to contact her, and who had not once answered his phone. She'd stopped calling after two days, and had chosen not to mention him at all to Annie or anyone else. Her thoughts about him followed a similar path as they had after their first encounter, at the circus. First, she found his unavailability intriguing, even novel. But after three days, it seemed willful and adolescent. By the fourth day, she was tired of the game. Anyone who disappeared like that was not a serious person. He wasn't serious about her or how she felt.
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Book Two, part 1
Quotes
"Mae."
She wanted to hear it again, so she said nothing. "Mae."
It was a young woman's voice, a young woman's voice that sounded bright and fierce and capable of anything.
"Mae."
It was a better, more indomitable version of herself. "Mae.”
She felt stronger every time she heard it.
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Get the entire The Circle LitChart as a printable PDF.
The Voice Symbol Timeline in The Circle
The timeline below shows where the symbol The Voice appears in The Circle. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Book One, part 7
...hundred questions a day. When Mae doesn’t answer a question promptly, she’ll hear her own voice in her headset—which Mae finds very disorienting.
(full context)
...Kalden walking into her office. Just as she’s about to greet him, she hears her voice in her headset, asking her to answer a question. She hesitates, and Kalden walks out...
(full context)
Book Two, part 1
...headset asks her survey questions. When she doesn’t answer them immediately, she hears her own voice, saying her name as a reminder. Mae no longer finds hearing her own voice to...
(full context)
...customers, but she continues to feel the tear. When she pauses, she hears her own voice in her headset, prompting her to answer the questions. The voice sounds calming—indeed, “it felt...
(full context)
