The Circle - Dave Eggers (2013)

Résumé du document

“My God. (…) It's heaven” are the first thoughts of Mae when she discovers the Circle (p. 1). This heaven will progressively become hell as we follow her into The Circle, a science-fiction novel written by Dave Eggers and published in 2013. Mae Holland joins the Circle, the most powerful company in the world. The book follows her evolution in the company as new technologies are developed by the Circle in the near future. As Mae becomes more and more transparent and public, the company is heading towards “completion”, provoking conflicts about the impacts of technology on our society, freedom, privacy, and human knowledge.

Extraits

[...] In exchange, the parents have to bear the presence of Seechange cameras. But they complain about the violation of their privacy, thus creating a conflict between Mae and her parents. Mae will get more and more distant afterwards. Mae thinks about them at the end of the book thinking that the completion of technology will bring them together again: “Mae had not reached her parents in a few months now, but it would only be a matter of time” (p.497). [...]

[...] The Circle - Dave Eggers (2013) “My God. ( ) It's heaven” are the first thoughts of Mae when she discovers the Circle (p. 1). This heaven will progressively become hell as we follow her into The Circle, a science-fiction novel written by Dave Eggers and published in 2013. Mae Holland joins the Circle, the most powerful company in the world. The book follows her evolution in the company as new technologies are developed by the Circle in the near future. [...]

[...] In particular, the CircleSurvey where Mae answers random questions by nodding. “At certain moments, there was the happy visual of a herd of heads nodding in what appeared to be in unison,” wrote Eggers to emphasize the brainwashing of “technocommunism” to the detriment of the individuality and people's own way of thinking (p.265). In addition, these technologies deprive humans from basic rights such as privacy or freedom. In fact, software like Seechange, Neighborwatch, and TrackChild neglect people's privacy which is a fundamental human right. [...]

[...] In fact, almost every relationship of Mae is destroyed as she grows within the company. Her best friend Annie who made her enter the company sees her less frequently once she becomes transparent. Their relationship enters a crisis at this moment and they will never be as close as in the beginning. Mae also seems to have a normal relationship with her parents at the beginning of the book. However, his father is sick and Mae provides him healthcare through the Circle. [...]

[...] At the beginning, these software programs were optional to use. But Mae comes up with an idea to make mandatory to have a TruYou account. Then Demoxie forces people to cast their vote through their internet account and pretends to be the solution to have full democracy. However, it's against democracy to force people to vote or to disclose all their information. The Circle uses democracy and equality as a pretext to settle in a totalitarian society. To sum up, technology is used to gain control over society and to implement a totalitarian regime. [...]