Two alternating storylines—childhood play, adult observations and conversations—develop throughout six sections of this narrative poem with the final seventh section bringing the two stories together.

The poem opens with the titular “circle game,” an image of innocence and playfulness (which Atwood will soon complicate). With this image, Atwood introduces the symbol of the circle, which pervades and governs the poem. The circle game is reminiscent of “Ring around the Rosie”; the speaker observes “each arm going into / the next arm” (Lines 4-5) and continues with “They are singing” (Line 10). Line 14 presents the first instance of first-person speech, as “we” watch the children: “We can see / the concentration on / their faces” (Lines 14-16). The reader soon learns that while this is a plural pronoun, the speaker is singular but referring to themselves and another person (the “you” figure, their partner).

This initiates Atwood’s viewpoint on the darker underbelly of the playfulness: “We might mistake this / tranced moving for joy / but there is no joy in it” (Lines 20-22). Like many children’s games and fables, there is a dark subtext that often the adults detect and children do not.