In Circe, the title character struggles to accept and love herself and trust the love of others. This internal conflict is developed throughout the story. In a family of selfish gods and nymphs, Circe tries to earn love through obedience and the suppression of her true self. The inciting incident comes when she believes she’s found love with a mortal fisherman. She defies her family’s laws by transforming Glaucos into an immortal being so she can be with him, but when he prefers Scylla and chooses status over Circe’s love, Circe is confused and devastated because she trusted that their love was genuine. By lashing out and transforming Scylla into a monster, she sets herself up for enduring self-loathing. Her inability to love herself eases when Circe is exiled to Aiaia, where she learns to appreciate herself and her powers in solitude, away from her selfish and neglectful family. 

The story proceeds in a series of episodes in which Circe grapples with the love of others, be it healthy or dangerous, and struggles to understand her position within the world as an immortal. Circe does find some familial closure when she visits her sister and realizes that Pasiphaë’s hostility was an act of self-preservation and not an indication that Circe was undeserving of her sister’s love. Pasiphaë also reveals that although Circe felt like an outsider in their family, there were no real relationships based on love or trust in Helios’s halls. For the first time, Circe realizes that she is not actually unlovable. Her short relationship with Daedalus confirms this epiphany, but she returns to Aiaia lonelier than ever, longing for companionship and love. The arriving sailors provide further antagonism in that Circe sees them as an opportunity to be useful and helpful, yet they only bring pain and absolute physical violation. When she is raped by the captain while his men watch, she loses faith in humanity and closes herself off to any possibility of a relationship until Odysseus arrives. With Odysseus, Circe finds someone she considers an equal. He is a man who respects her even though he knows she has the potential to be dangerous. However, after he leaves, Circe realizes that she filled Odysseus's life with beauty and comfort and shielded him from uncomfortable truths about herself, so they never really knew one another in an authentic way. 

Circe’s life as a mother to Telegonus develops and reveals her capacity for self-sacrifice, further differentiating her from the gods in her family. Circe withholds information from Telegonus: much like Odysseus, he does not truly know her. Still, Circe demonstrates a powerful love for him by risking her life to save him from Athena as a baby, challenging Trygon for his tail in order to ensure Telegonus’s protection and once again confronting Athena when she returns. In addition to the physical risks she endures, Circe also sacrifices for Telegonus in other ways. She gives up her peace to do the exhausting work of maintaining the spells of protection over Aiaia. Circe gives her son her blessing to leave the island to go meet his father, a prospect that she finds absolutely terrifying. She makes a similar sacrifice when she supports Telegonus when he accepts Athena’s offer and ultimately leaves Aiaia and his mother forever. Circe’s ability to love Telegonus so freely despite the pain it causes her reveals that she is not only able to give love but is also worthy of receiving it. 

Telemachus is the instrument that brings Circe’s quest for love to its climax. He also serves as an antithesis to his father Odysseus. While Odysseus is vain and arrogant, Telemachus is humble. While Odysseus is explosive in temper, Telemachus is patient. Although Circe is suspicious of Telemachus and his motives when he first arrives on Aiaia with Telegonus and Penelope, she learns to value his honesty and humility. Ultimately, Circe confides in Telemachus, telling him all the things she finds most monstrous about herself. Not only does she tell of the episodes of Scylla and turning sailors into pigs, but she also trusts Telemachus to accompany her in finally destroying Scylla and atoning for the greatest sin of her past. These acts illustrate her vulnerability and allow Telemachus to know her at her weakest and her worst. When he offers her unconditional acceptance in response, Circe is finally able to accept her own worth, and the plot hurdles toward its resolution.  

The story concludes as Circe’s potion reveals that she has achieved her ultimate goal of finding real love. Her decision to rescind her divinity and live a mortal life with Telemachus demonstrates that she has fully evolved as a character. The act brings the novel’s most prominent theme to its conclusion: she understands that in order to love and be loved, she must be willing to change and grow, something that she has never believed gods to be capable of. For almost her entire life, she has wanted to be different from her family, whom she sees as self-serving, selfish, power-hungry immortals who can never understand the joys of mortal life. In pursuing mortality, Circe expresses how highly she values love, and how love has the potential to transform a person. She ultimately seeks a life with Telemachus, future children, Telegonus, and Penelope. The novel thus concludes with Circe living a far richer and more fulfilling life as a mortal than she ever could have as a divine being.