How we cite our quotes: (Book.Section.Paragraph)
Quote #7
He had come from Omaha, from an exceedingly normal family of six, and had more or less nothing remarkable in his past. He'd gone to Notre Dame and married his girlfriend, who'd gone to Saint Mary's down the road, and now they had four children of their own, three girls and finally a boy, though that boy had been born with cerebral palsy. (1.3.64)
Whereas Tom Stenton is the exemplar of American wealth and power, Eamon Bailey is the exemplar of all-American values. Whereas Stenton owns homes all over the world, Bailey is a country boy who lives with his family in "a modest three-bedroom home" just down the street (1.3.63).
Quote #8
"Mae, now that you're aboard, I wanted to get across some of the core beliefs here at the company. And chief among them is that just as important as the work we do here—and that work is very important—we want to make sure that you can be a human being here, too. We want this to be a workplace, sure, but it should also be a humanplace. And that means the fostering of community. In fact, it must be a community. That's one of our slogans, as you probably know: Community First. And you've seen the signs that say Humans Work Here—I insist on those." (1.6.90)
The Circle claims to be a company that values the rights and dignities of its workers, and, as such, it sets itself apart from unjust sweatshops and factories around the globe—and even from your more usual white-collar office buildings. To Mae Holland, this is proof of the company's innovativeness and progressivism. But how deeply does the Circle really value the American ideals of freedom, equality, and democracy?
Quote #9
"We are here today to insist that the Senate's Antitrust Task Force begin an investigation into whether or not the Circle acts as a monopoly. We believe that the Justice Department will see the Circle for what it is, a monopoly in its purest sense, and move to break it up, just as they did with Standard Oil, AT&T and every other demonstrated monopoly in our history. The dominance of the Circle stifles competition and is dangerous to our way of free-market capitalism." (1.27.3)
It's interesting to note that when Senator Williamson presents her opposition to the Circle, she does so on the basis of the threat that the company poses to free-market capitalism, not to things like, oh, we don't know, human rights and constitutional freedoms. Is Dave Eggers implying something here?