The Invisible is only Visible to the Invisible: Circle Blog #4

To be completely honest, the shark in the fish tank portion of The Circle was beyond creepy.  This menacing, mysterious, monster invades the habitat of all the other sea creatures and generates massive amounts of panic as it consumes every living thing in sight.  The other ocean life, most originating from the Mariana Trench, are no match for the nightmarish fish and seek shelter in the container they are held in before being fed to the shark.  The entire scene, as viewed by Mae's transparency cameras, represents an overgeneralized version of the Circle and its impacts on individuals in society through connections to privacy, greed, and total annihilation.

The Circle kills privacy.  Perhaps not on purpose, the Circle views privacy as a dark place secrets can hide and eat away at society.  This idea is exemplified by the victim sea creatures' apparent clinging to their tub habitat before being fed into the tank (Eggers 320).  In their perspective, the privacy is all that is left to protect them from the jaws of death.  Similarly, in society during the novel, the privacy of the individual is being sacrificed as people begin to put all of their information online and visible to everyone.  There is no more metaphorical "tub" to protect people from one another.

The Circle is just as much a greedy monster as the shark in the tank.  Stopping at nothing, the three wise men have the vision to "complete the circle" and to finally get everything connected and online under one platform.  In this way, the shark in the tank begins to replicate the actions of the Circle through is ravenous hunger.  One obstacle at a time is consumed and disposed of and the hunger is still not satisfied.  The problem with the Circle is that, with their amount of wealth and influence, an infinite amount of social "improvements" can be found.  The shark has a relatively supreme sense of power in the tank and cannot be stopped, just like the company.

In addition to being extremely greedy, the sea monster in the tank also showcases the idea of total annihilation.  Even though the Circle supports the idea that nothing should be able to be deleted anymore, they indirectly delete any real-life interactions from being genuine. Everything the Circle attacks has been destroyed or dismantled and then displayed for the world.  For example, when Mae breaks the law, they utilize their transparent cameras to showcase to everyone how they can correct an individual's wrongs.  The shark in the tank also shows the world its ability to do the same by being slightly translucent and allowing viewers to see its digestive track process its food while it defecates ash (Eggers318).

In the end, the shark in the fish tank is mostly a forced metaphor set up by Eggers that represents the idea of the circle.  In my opinion, the relationship between the monster and the innocent fish around it it is too close to the interaction between the Circle and society. Although it creates a clear similarity between the two, the shark appears asa random symbol created to establish the metaphor.  Regardless, the shark form the Mariana Trench is an accurate representation of the Circle in that it invades the privacy of other living things, it knows no limits, and it totally destroys anything without leaving a recognizable trace behind. Hopefully, Mae can realize this negative trend in society and move to action.

Image Credits:

Image provided by Klaus Stiefel