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Summary
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Circe, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Power, Fear, and Self-Preservation
Women, Power, and Misogyny
Change, Initiative, and the Self
Mortality, Fragility, and Fulfillment
Family and Individuality
Summary
Analysis
At the time of Circe’s birth, there is no name for what she is. Others initially assume that, like her mother Perse, Circe is a nymph. Nymphs are the least powerful of all goddesses, and the word nymph means “bride.”
The novel’s beginning establishes the sexism of ancient Greece. Nymphs have no (or very limited) supernatural powers and are therefore are at the bottom of the hierarchy of the gods. While there are some powerful female gods, the people on the lowest rung of the ladder are female, which suggests women’s inferior position to men in ancient Greece. Additionally, the fact that the term nymph means “bride” shows that powerless women are seen as sexual objects for men. Because of their gender, women’s societal value and future are limited to marriage.
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Circe’s father, Helios, is a Titan. Perse met him through her own father, Oceanos. As Oceanos’s cousin, Helios frequently visited his palace, which is where he first saw Perse. Circe pictures her mother arranging her dress seductively to catch Helios’s eye. When Helios asked about Perse, Oceanos told him that he could have her if he wanted her.
Perse’s calculated posing demonstrates the idea that women must objectify themselves in order to get some power in ancient Greece’s sexist society. Perse is a nymph, so as a woman without significant supernatural capabilities, she is effectively powerless. Aware that the only way she can get power is through a man, she shows herself off to catch the attention of Helios, one of the most powerful Titans. Meanwhile, Oceanos sees his daughter as merely an object to give away. Women have no say in their futures, as is demonstrated when Oceanos never asks Perse for her opinion on marrying Helios.
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When Helios first approached Perse, she refused to have sex with him until he married her. Helios had been with many women, but he’d never been given an ultimatum before—it thrilled him. He, like all the other gods, was intrigued by novelty. Helios sealed the engagement by giving her a necklace that he made himself with rare amber beads.
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Helios would go on to give Perse a similar necklace after the birth of each of her four children, and she treasured both the necklaces and the envy they inspired among her sisters. Circe speculates that her mother would have continued having children forever, just to get more necklaces, if the more powerful gods hadn’t found out what her children were and forbidden her from having more children with Helios.
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When Circe is born, Perse is disappointed to have a girl. But Helios is pleased—as with all his other daughters from different women, he knows that men and gods alike will pay him a fortune to marry Circe. Momentarily consoled that Circe “could be traded for something better,” Perse asks Helios what kind of match Circe will make. He replies that she will likely marry a mortal prince, as she is not pretty enough to attract a god. Disgusted by mortals, Perse is revolted at the thought of her daughter marrying one. Already healed from giving birth, Perse tells Helios that they will create a “better” child.
Perse takes no interest in raising Circe, and with Helios gone each day to ride his chariot across the sky, Circe spends much of her young childhood on her own in her father palace, where she wanders the obsidian halls. Without Helios there to give off light, the palace is quite dark; in designing the palace, he picked obsidian so that it would reflect his light, and he never considered what it might be like there without him. Whenever Helios returns for the night, Perse tries to entice him to their bedroom. He usually agrees, but Circe likes it when he doesn’t, since it makes Perse storm off.
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Sitting at her father’s feet, Circe sees the world as “made of gold” because of the light he gives off. While Circe can stare into his face, looking at Helios would turn a mortal to ash. Circe asks what would happen if a mortal saw her, and Helios replies that the mortal would consider himself fortunate but would not be burned. Burning a log in the fireplace with his eyes, Helios explains that Circe doesn’t even have the “least of [his] powers.”
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Perse gives birth to two more children: one girl and one boy. The daughter, whom she names Pasiphaë, earns a prophecy from Helios, who declares that she will marry “an eternal son of Zeus.” Perse is thrilled about Pasiphaë’s promising prophecy, and Circe is sure that she is already planning which dress she will wear on the day of the wedding. For his newborn son, Helios has no prophecy but states that he “reflects upon his mother.” Glowing with pride, Perse names him Perses, after herself.
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Perses and Pasiphaë quickly notice that Perse loathes Circe, and they begin to incessantly mock her, calling her ugly and shrill. Soon Circe isn’t the only one they torment—they start terrorizing all the other nymphs and river-lords in Oceanos’s palace. Circe does her best to escape her siblings, choosing instead to sit at Helios’s feet in his halls.
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One day, Helios invites Circe to join him in visiting his sacred cows—which are envied by the other gods—so they ride in his chariot across the sky. When they arrive at the pasture, Circe’s half-sisters, Lampetia and Phaethousa, are there. Two of Helios’s most beautiful daughters, they are caretakers of the cows. With a kind tone, they insult Circe’s eyes and advise her to keep her hair braided to disguise its streakiness and to hide her ugly voice by not speaking.
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The cows are pure white and perfect, with gilded horns and gleaming coats. Lampetia and Phaethousa (whom Circe struggles to tell apart) try to teach Circe the names of the cows but get them mixed up. Abruptly, Helios spots a scab on one of the cows. He becomes suddenly cold and demands that Lampetia and Phaethousa fix it by tomorrow. The two women become frenzied: they bow, apologize, and promise to fix the scab. Circe observes that the scab is no bigger than her fingernail.
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As Helios and Circe fly home in the chariot, Circe remembers something Helios once told her: that there are mortals called astronomers whose job it is to track Helios’s path, predicting when the sun rises and sets. When the astronomers are wrong, the kings whom they serve kill them. Helios believes that these deaths are deserved, as he’s offended by the notion that anyone could predict his behavior.
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Circe asks Helios whether tonight they are late enough to get the astronomers killed. When Helios says yes, Circe feels sick to her stomach, imagining astronomers begging for their lives and explaining that it’s not their fault that the sun is late. Helios dismisses her discomfort as hunger.
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Back at the palace, Perses and Pasiphaë ask Circe about the cows and mock her for not knowing something about them. When Circe asks what that something is, her sister explains that Helios sometimes turns into a bull and has sex with the cows, fathering their calves. Perse joins in their laughter and calls Circe stupid. In moments like these, Circe believes that her life will be miserable forever.
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