Circe's Impact On My Life by Mia

Circe's Impact On My Life by Mia - October 2025 Scholarship Essay

One of my all-time favorite books is Circe by Madeline Miller. It is a Greek mythology epic that spans thousands of years, focusing on Circe, a daughter of Helios. Throughout her adolescence, or as close to adolescence as a god can get, Circe is bullied relentlessly by her family. She is not as beautiful or powerful as any of her siblings, and she found herself pondering her own self-worth. It gets even worse when she discovers she can turn a man into a god, and Glaucos ends up falling in love with someone else, completely ignoring her. Circe got caught up in her anger and transformed the nymph that he fell in love with into a terrible monster. Through heated emotion, Circe discovered that she had a unique power for manipulating nature; she was a witch. This got her banished, but she was not hindered. She used this time to discover everything that she could do and go on a journey of self-discovery.
This is my favorite book because Circe's journey to self-discovery teaches a valuable lesson. Other people can't stop one from becoming the best version of oneself. A lesson that I've learned is that I am the most important person in my life, and reading Circe really solidified this discovery. By focusing my energy inward, I, like Circe, can discover what I am truly good at and enjoy. Letting other people bring me down is a completely worthless use of my time and energy. By following in Circe's footsteps, I can get closer to self-actualization. Circe's time being banished to her island was my favorite part of the book because I loved hearing about how she was learning new things that she could accomplish every day. She was truly happy with her own company, and that is a level of self-love that everybody should strive to achieve. Overall, the lesson of self-discovery in Circe is one of the most valuable to learn.