“Flatland” by Edwin Abbott

I would like to start out by saying that I’ve never read a book that completely revolves around a mathematical subject; it was different to say the least and it definitely took some effort to pay attention to what I was reading in the beginning. I don’t mean the math part or the author’s use of geometric shapes, I actually found these to be the simplest concepts in the book; simple enough for a child to understand even. I think it was very organized as well, which made it really easy to follow. Abbott separated different subjects in different sections; twenty two sections made up the book and they all had titles explaining what each section was about which made it super easy to go back and reread a certain section without any trouble. So if I wanted to go back and read about the colors that were once used in Flatland to differentiate people of different classes, I would look back to the contents page and know that section nine is where ‘the Colour Bill’ was discussed.
It was the social concept that I had to really sit down and think about. “Flatland” takes place in a fictional country where the citizens are geometric shapes; the priests, who weren’t really priest as the author later explains, but the administrators, the scientists, the engineers, and the ruling class of Flatland who oversee all things of merit, are circles. Other men can have many sides; the more sides, the higher up the social class they become. An additional side is given to the off springs of the following generation. For example, the writer, a square, has children who are pentagons and their children are hexagons. The women in Flatland however are straight lines and they can never have sides or be anything other than straight line. At first, I found it very strange reading a number (no pun intended) of things; for example women are physically

intimidating in Flatland since they’re shaped like needles and they could “accidently” kill or seriously injure their male counterparts by simply running into them but they didn’t enjoy many civil liberties or civil rights, in fact they were considered stupid! I remember reading the final couple of paragraphs in part one, section 12, the square explains that the men in Flatland had to speak a different or dumbed-down dialect when addressing a woman. They were probably the most harmful beings in Flatland yet they were treated so negatively and not given proper educations to be qualified for any position other than that of a housewife. I realize that the book was written more than a century ago and there was no doubt that there were parallels (again, no pun intended) between the fictional Flatland and our own nonfictional world. I think that may have been the reason I chose it in the first place; it reminded me a little of George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” where animals were the characters used to portray a serious political issue we humans faced. Anyone reading “Flatland” at the time it was first published would have come to the conclusion that Abbott was in favor of women obtaining higher educations, which, I can imagine, must have been very controversial. I did some research on the book, and I read that Abbott wrote the book with the penname ‘A Square’, which may have taken some of the heat off of him for the suggestions he made. I also found the concept of recognition hard to comprehend. How did these shapes feel each other if they didn’t have hands? And wouldn’t that have been inappropriate? Even if only the lower class were accustomed to this since they weren’t taught the art of seeing, I can imagine it was not trip being felt by a stranger instead of shaking their hands. This may have been the downside of having geometric shapes for characters of an alternate universe. So where does the law draw the line between feeling someone in order to recognize them and saying that it’s sexual harassment? This logic just seemed flawed.

There were no mathematical equations or formulas to be used, but Abbott used a lot of illustrations to aid the readers’ imagination on several accounts. He would illustrate how certain things looked to a citizen of flatland or how the citizens of Lineland or Spaceland see things or other people in their country. At one point, the square has a discussion with his hexagonal grandson in which the grandson theorizes that if a side that can be squared or raised to the second power, it can also mean that it can be raised to the third power or be cubed. We know this is possible because we live in a three dimensional world. But the square quickly rejects the idea and calls the boy a fool! But not too long after, he receives a visit from a circle from Spaceland, a sphere! The sphere tries and tries to convince the square that his reality is superior to that of Flatland’s, that it surpasses the laws of squaring sides and rather cubes them. You would think he would believe him since only a few hours before this encounter, the square dreams of going to Lineland and meeting the country’s king and tries to convince him that his reality is superior to that of the line’s. The line even tried to attack the square but he quickly backed out of the Country and seemingly disappeared to the naïve monarch. The same happened with the square except the sphere took him on a trip that shook the very roots of his beliefs, the very beliefs he was that would punish him for sharing what he saw that night, for sharing the truth! When the square realizes this, he starts treating the sphere like he’s the Messiah. He starts calling him things like ‘my Lord’ and ‘gracious Teacher’, etc. and he later says that he has the preach the gospel of Truth as it were.
When all of this is over, and the square returns to his home in Flatland, he is welcomed by the Resolution of the Council warning all those who believed or preached of land of three dimensions that they those are crimes against the State and they are punishable by death or

imprisonment. The square decides to talk to his grandson since his wife’s mental capacity was unequipped to handle this sort of thing. But the smart adolescent hexagon realized that these discussions he had with his grandfather were a crime. This discouraged the square and he later decided that maybe it was for the best. He tried to keep these things he saw to himself but he blurted them out in a meeting at the district Prefect’s palace. He was arrested and brought to court where only a couple of isosceles triangles who couldn’t possibly comprehend much of what was said, they were loyal to the law.
So our beloved square was imprisoned, he compared himself to Prometheus, a titan from Greek Mythology who was bound by the gods for bringing fire down to the mortals. The readers don’t know if the truth of the third dimension is hidden by the government but if had to guess, I would say that they probably did and held that truth from the people of Flatland but then again maybe they didn’t. Maybe they were just happy with the reality that they were a part of and didn’t want to open their minds to the idea. We see evidence of this in our own history; Galileo, for example, was deemed a heretic after sharing his findings on the Sun’s position in the Solar System and was placed under house arrest. Dozens like him were excommunicated or even beheaded for going public. If this novella had a thesis, I think it would for us Spacelanders to keep an open mind for new ideas, or theories, or truths; that having a mind and different beliefs should not be against the law even if we don’t accept those beliefs to be true. I think Abbott wants us Spacelanders to have tolerance for those around us whether they are of the opposite gender, a different social class, or color. I don’t know what affect this book had on the public when it first came out, I never really heard anyone saying that it changed the way women were treated in the late 19th century, but it may have made some room for discussion of things that

were not possible then, like women going to college, or voting or whatever. I think Abbott wanted the inhabitants of this world of our to be educated enough to not be prejudice, and to leave some room for others to believe what they want to believe because as a great philosopher once said, “it is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”