Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions

The Square admits that while Flatland’s history is full of exciting battles, rebellions, factional splits, and conspiracies, it is a very dull place in terms of aesthetics. Everything there, including art, is composed of only straight lines with “no varieties except degrees of brightness and obscurity” (26). He then describes the “Colour Revolt,” an uprising led by a Pentagon known as Chromatistes who discovered simple colors and painted his own house. The trend of painting spread through Flatland quickly and soon everyone but the most conservative Pentagons were painting their dwellings, and within two generations, all beings in Flatland were colorful except for the women and the priests. While he suggests that many people saw the Revolt as sinful and immoral, the Square himself sees it as a positive event that added joy to the everyday lives of Flatlanders. The Revolt reached its climax during a military review, when an illustrious Circle became so overwhelmed by the beautiful sight that he declared he would leave his government post and become an artist. The language of Flatland even became richer during this period, with writers producing the land’s finest poetry.

The downside of the Revolt, the Square goes on to say, was that the “intellectual Arts” were no longer necessary (28). The practices of recognition by sight and feeling fell into disuse, leading to the decay of educational institutions, and the lower classes began to understand that there were no significant differences between them and the polygonal classes, which led them to demand that the latter stop monopolizing certain behaviors and privileges. Ultimately, the lower classes demanded that all aristocratic distinctions be eliminated and all shapes in Flatland be given equal rights. In addition, all Flatlanders, including women and priests, were to be painted as an homage to color. In a further insult to the old order, the women and priests were to be painted with red and green, making it difficult to distinguish between the two groups.

The Square describes the shape who introduced this demand as an “Irregular Circle” who should have been killed in childhood (29). The law requiring women to be painted like priests was intended to make women feel as special and respectable as the priestly class, and consequently Flatland’s women were highly supportive of the “Universal Colour Bill.” Beyond this specific mandate, the bill was intended to generally demoralize the upper-class Circles. This purpose would be accomplished mainly by degrading the art of sight recognition, the principal method aristocrats used to distinguish between members of their own class and their supposed inferiors.

The arguments about the Universal Colour Bill lasted for three years, during which time a huge force of Isosceles Triangles defeated an army of Polygons. There was a great deal of domestic unhappiness as wives tried to convince their husbands to support the bill, sometimes even killing their husbands and children in the process. However, the disaster came to an unexpected end when an Isosceles painted himself like a Polygon, feigned the Polygon’s voice, and raped the orphan daughter of a noble; upon learning of the fraud, the woman killed herself. When news of this spread, women throughout Flatland turned against the bill, believing that the male shapes would take advantage of it to hurt them in similar ways. The Circular class convened “an extraordinary Assembly of the States,” during which the Chief Circle, Pantocyclus, manipulated the lower classes into turning against the bill (32). He did this not only by pointing out potential dangers for women, but by reminding the Regular Isosceles Triangles that many of them might yet advance into higher ranks of society but would not be able to do so if all social distinctions were erased by the law.

A short but violent battled ensued, during which a group of Irregular Isosceles slaughtered the remaining Chromatistes. By the end of the incident, the Irregulars had killed each other with their sharp angles, and the rebellion was finished. After taking back their power, the Circles decimated the working classes, killed any Triangle suspected of irregularity, and put the whole of Flatland under surveillance. The use of color was prohibited, and as of the Square’s narration, only the Chief Circle has access to it.

Before arriving at the central event of the story—a description of his introduction to “the mysteries of Space”—the Square feels he must provide more information about the priestly class of Circles. He explains that the priests do not actually do any work themselves but are responsible for administering work done by all other classes, including educators, statesmen, engineers, and architects. They are not circles in a literal sense but polygons whose sides are so small and so numerous that their perimeters feel and look like circles. While Circles can rise unrestricted through society, they are subject to some natural laws: as they develop, their development increases in speed, and over time, they become less fertile. Additionally, doctors have discovered that the “small and tender sides” of polygonal infants can be easily fractured and reset in such a way that their development is sped up even further, although this procedure is extremely dangerous (36). The mortality rate is so high that noble polygons often place their children in a special hospital by the time they are a month old; if they survive, their parents feel a special sense of triumph.

The Square begins this section by emphasizing the importance of “configuration” for Flatlanders, particularly for priests (37). He admits that most Circles do not see qualities like effort, training, or encouragement as having any real impact on behavior: according to them, everything depends on a shape’s configuration. He again references Pantocyclus, the illustrious Circle who stopped the Colour Revolt. Pantocyclus argued that all defects, no matter how minor, stemmed from a deviation in the physical form. The Square himself has a difficult time either accepting or rejecting this doctrine, and he describes how it often fails to account for shapes’ behavior. He also points out that sometimes the highest Circles do, in fact, use the language of right and wrong when disciplining their own children.

The Circles’ weakest point, according to the Square, is their relations with women. The circular class is responsible for documenting irregularities among all shapes, but since women are straight lines, it is difficult to locate their irregularities. Given this, all women must have a “certified pedigree” in order to marry (39). Circles themselves, despite their own nobility, are attracted to lower-class women and even aim to marry women descended from Irregular ancestors. These marriages usually do not produce children, but when they do, the polygonal children have actually lost sides rather than gained them. However, this does not seem to deter the Circles.

The Square then describes a decree, passed 300 years previously, that declared women too emotional and too lacking in intelligence to be treated like rational beings or to receive even the most basic education. As a result, the male Flatlanders must lead what he calls a “bi-lingual” or “bi-mental” existence in which their language implies that they are deferring to women while they are actually maintaining their power and continuing to treat women as though they are mindless (40). The Square is concerned that because male children receive this kind of double education—in both language and thought—they will be less and less able to discern what is actually true. He is also anxious about what might happen if women should somehow learn to read and think independently. He closes the section with an appeal to Flatland’s authorities to rethink its policy on female education.