Annie Allerton

Outer characterization

Annie Allerton is Mae Holland’s best friend in the novel The Circle by Dave Eggers. They were roommates at university, even though Annie is two years older than her. Annie comes from a wealthy family and is pretty: “She came from money, generations of money, and was very cute, dimpled and long-lashed, with hair so blond it could only be real.”

Towards the end of the novel, Annie looks tired and aged because of her stressful job at The Circle: “Her face was drawn, her skin pale. Annie was not yet twenty-seven but there were bags under her eyes. In this light, she seemed to have aged five years in the last two months.” (p. 351). This shows how hard The Circle pushes its employees and how damaging its tools are. 

Inner characterization

Annie is popular and appears confident

Annie and Mae were roommates in college, where they formed an “extraordinary bond, something like friends, something like sisters or cousins who wished they were siblings and would have reason never to be apart.” (p. 2). In their first month of living together, Mae broke her jaw and Annie looked after her tirelessly: “It was a fierce level of commitment and competence that Mae had never seen from someone her age or near her age, and Mae was thereafter loyal in a way she’d never ...