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Chapter 26
Themes
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
Circe kneels on a bank and squeezes some flowers over the bowl, so that the sap drops out. Frightened, Circe thinks of how the flowers made Scylla a monster and made Glaucos a worse man than he had been. She wonders whether a monster lives within her, too. Or maybe it doesn’t. She envisions all her dreams: she and Telemachus traveling together, him fixing ships and her healing fevers, both “tak[ing] pleasure in the simple mending of the world.”
Aware that the previous recipients of the flowers became more monstrous versions of themselves, Circe is worried that she, too, will become something wicked—after all, she has committed some atrocious acts in the past. But she realizes that those acts do not define her. She has grown since then, already transformed into the compassionate woman she is now. She simply wants the mortality to match. She imagines her future with Telemachus, detailed in such a way as to suggest that this is indeed what comes to pass. With her mortality, she plans on “mending […] the world” in the simple ways that she and Telemachus are able to do. While they are unable to completely dismantle the cycle of power and abuse that plagues the world of the novel, they can take action to improve it in the ways that they can.
Themes
Circe imagines Telemachus asking her for children and promising to be with her throughout. Penelope will remain on Aiaia, and Circe, Telemachus, and the two daughters that they will have will visit. As for Telegonus, they will visit him in his city where he rules justly.
With Telemachus’s unending support, Circe never feels alone. His respect for her and equal treatment of her effectively ends her isolation.
Themes
And when she looks into the mirror, Circe will see her age on her face and her skin will show her scars. She will feel the fragility of her life and the lives of Telemachus and their children. When she fears the malice and carelessness of the gods above them, she will use her power to create something anew. But when she still feels afraid, Telemachus will come to her and comfort her, telling her that “it will be all right.” Although that doesn’t change her life’s precariousness, it will remind her that she is still here, feeling the force of being alive, and so she will be comforted.
Circe is excited for her body to age and for it to bear scars. To Circe, scars are the physical record of one’s mistakes and failures, which are what make a person unique. It is through trying and failing that a person grows, so in this way, scars are also associated with change. Circe longs for her body—which remained unmarked during her time as a goddess—to reflect how she has transformed over the years. As a mortal, she will at last be able to experience this. Of course, mortality comes with its disadvantages—namely, Circe feels anxious about her and her loved ones’ fragility, and how the gods can ruin their lives at any instant. But even so, Circe prefers to be a mortal, knowing that her eventual death makes her life more precious—she is forced to savor every moment of it.
Themes
Circe looks at the stars and feels her divinity ready to slide away. Although she had once thought that the gods are “the opposite of death,” she now realizes that “they are more dead than anything” because they never grow or change. Ready at last and longing for mortality, she raises the bowl to her lips and drinks.
According to Circe, growth is necessary for life. Circe sees the gods as “more dead than anything” because they rarely experience this growth. Devoid of compassion, they care only for themselves and the power they can gain to dominate others. Born with divine power, the gods rarely experience failure and therefore don’t improve themselves. Jaded by their eternal existence, the gods are apathetic to those around them and are unable to form genuine connections. Given this, Circe chooses to give up her immortality and give herself the more meaningful mortal life that she wants.
Themes
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