Who is the narrator, can she or he read minds, and, more importantly, can we trust her or him?
Third Person (Limited Omniscient)
Although The Circle has a third-person narrator, that narrator's perspective is so bound up with Mae Holland's that it's often difficult, if not impossible, to tell the two apart.
How and why does this happen? Throughout the novel, Dave Eggers makes ample use of free indirect discourse—the narrative style in which the narrator's perspective merges with and reveals the consciousness of one or more of the story's characters. Take a look at this passage to see what we mean:
And then Mae found herself sobbing. Her father was a mess. No, he wasn't a mess. He was managing it all with great dignity. But there had been something very tired about him that morning, something defeated, accepting, as if he knew that he couldn't fight both what was happening in his body and the companies managing his care. And there was nothing she could do for him. No, there was too much to do for him. She could quit her job. She could quit and help make the phone calls, fight the many fights to keep him well. This is what a good daughter would do. What a good child, an only child, would do. (1.10.18)
We can see the presence of a third-person narrator here because the sentence "and then Mae found herself sobbing" could never happen if this was first-person narration ("and then I found myself sobbing") or second-person narration ("and then you found yourself sobbing"). All the same, this third-person narrator isn't simply describing Mae's thoughts and actions objectively and at a distance—this narrator is actually assuming Mae's thoughts and feelings, and communicating them as though they were the narrator's own. That's free indirect discourse in action, folks.
The free indirect discourse that happens throughout The Circle always reflects Mae Holland's perspective on the world. This is why the novel's third-person narrator is so limited. We readers know that Mae's perspective is not only naïve but dangerous, too, and we can see that the novel itself sides with characters like Mercer Medeiros and Ty Gospodinov—men Mae sees as paranoid, irrational, and, in all probability, insane.
By using a third-person, limited-omniscient narrator, The Circle gives us direct insight into Mae Holland's thoughts and feelings. At the same time, by giving us plenty of opportunities to realize that Mae is terribly misguided, the novel creates dramatic irony, too. As readers, we see Mae's situation more clearly than she herself does, and so, in certain ways, we're savvier than the narrator.
How's it feel to be so wise and insightful, Shmoopers?