Flatland: Satire 6 key examples

There is an entire chapter of the novel entitled “Concerning the Women,” in which A Square explains that female shapes never have any sides at all: they are all lines. This portrayal of women as the simplest of shapes, often practically invisible, is a critique of how women were viewed in Victorian society. Because they have two “sharp” ends and are only visible from behind as a “dim sub-lustrous point,” they are considered far more dangerous and unstable than polygons. A Square unironically explains that they are “entirely devoid of brain-power.” Abbott’s choice to describe women in this way is a satirical reflection of the stereotypes and biases against women during the Victorian period, where they were routinely treated as lesser beings by their male counterparts. A Square speaks at length about the inherent violence he thinks “Females” possess, saying that if a polygon displeases a Line “the result is massacre.” He dismisses women utterly, telling the reader that they have “absolutely nothing to say.” As lines in a two-dimensional world, women are essentially invisible. This personification not only underscores their lack of social power but also ironically highlights the danger they pose in a male-dominated world, as their lack of visibility can be both a literal and figurative threat.

Abbott depicts the lower and middle classes of Flatland as various kinds of triangles. The smaller the internal angle, he tells the reader, the smaller the intelligence of the Shape. Different Triangles occupy different social roles, from the unstable and less respected Isosceles to the more stable and respected Equilaterals. Upper-class individuals are represented by more complex shapes, suggesting that more "sides" and larger internal angles equate to being more cultured. This portrayal satirizes the notion that broadness of experience and education—being “multifaceted”—is synonymous with higher social standing. Circles, the highest class, are beings that are both sideless and possess infinite sides, representing perfection and divinity. Being a Circle is the ultimate attainment in Flatland society, though the vast majority of Circles are born that way. They are treated with reverence regardless of their actual merits or contribution to society.

By giving geometric shapes human characteristics and societal positions, Abbott exposes and critiques the rigid class structures and gender biases of his time. The arbitrary way that classes are divided in Britain is compared with the arbitrariness of a polygon’s number of sides.

This is one of many moments in which the author emphasizes the narrator’s ignorance and prejudice to satirize conservative and incorrect societal perceptions. Many people in Victorian England—and apparently everyone in Flatland—views women as lacking intellectual capacity and being driven by violent emotion. By stating that women are "wholly devoid of brainpower" and incapable of "reflection, judgment, or forethought," A Square mirrors the exaggerated and demeaning stereotypes about women’s characters prevalent in his own time. In this passage, women seem absolutely deranged and uncontrollable, even lacking the power of memory. A Square believes they can’t “recognise [...] distinctions” when they are angry, becoming completely indiscriminate and shambolic. Although it’s exaggerated here for effect, women throughout history in Britain and elsewhere have been prevented from accessing power or education because they were considered intellectually and emotionally incapable. In Flatland, they are placed completely under the power of their husbands and male counterparts, as if they have to be controlled and trained like animals.

The hyperbole of this passage amplifies the satire of Abbot’s depiction of women as emotional and inherently violent. In the passage, A Square describes an extreme—but, he implies, not uncommon—scenario of a woman “exterminating” her entire household in a fit of rage, only to forget about it shortly afterward. It’s an overstatement that points to the real history of women being discriminated against for arbitrary and unjust reasons.

The satire in this passage is clear, but it’s centrally located in the description of the absurd law that forces female shapes to move in a certain way—“constantly from right to left”—to advertise their presence. The idea that some “Females” would face the “penalty of death” for not walking in a certain way is an analogy for the rigid societal controls and expectations placed on women during the Victorian era. By presenting this ludicrous scenario as a factual truth from A Square’s perspective, the author sharply criticizes the myriad of hoops that women had to jump through simply to exist in 19th century society. Although there were no specific laws dictating how they walked in the real world, this “Law” points out how arbitrary and oppressive other standards for women’s behavior were in Abbott’s time.

Abbott amplifies this by using hyperbole to exaggerate the consequences of these societal restrictions. Although A Square does think “Females” are dangerous and unstable, he also believes that regulating them too much might be the cause of “increased domestic murder.” By making the absurd claim that laws like the ones dictating women’s bodily movements lead to the "debilitation and diminution of the race" and an "increase in domestic murders," Abbott further underlines how deeply rooted prejudices against women were in his time. Women already have almost no rights in Flatland: removing more of them, according to A Square, would just push these already volatile shapes over the edge. This exaggeration is not just for effect or to add humor, although it is meant to be funny. It also sheds light on the real and often overlooked consequences of societal oppression and of ignoring women’s rights to autonomy.

The tactile imagery A Square uses to describe the "art of feeling" explains how touch is used as one way to distinguish the "real" shapes of other polygons in Flatland. Although A Square is dismissive of “Feeling” as primitive and uneducated, he also makes it clear that most shapes can instinctively do it very well. Interestingly, this is also a moment where the author deliberately alienates the reader from the narrator. It’s difficult enough to imagine “seeing” things in two dimensions, but here A Square tells the reader that their three-dimensional senses wouldn’t be of much use either. Although it seems like he is explaining an unfamiliar process so that they can understand, he is actually telling his audience in “the World of Space” that they couldn’t possibly understand it.

By stating that women and the lower classes primarily rely on feeling for recognition, A Square is implying that women and the “lower classes” are unable to think or “infer” in the same way as other shapes. They can only “Feel.” The narrator later goes on to explain the rarefied processes more socially elevated Shapes are taught to use to “see” each other. “Feeling” is regarded as being beneath them once they have learned these. This division of sensory perception along class and gender lines satirizes the accepted behaviors of the time, where intellectual capabilities and social status were often unjustly correlated by the ruling classes. The wealthy were often considered to be smarter and more educated regardless of the fact that the poor had far less access to education. It is also made clear that A Square thinks that “Females” and the “lower classes” are in fact universally only capable of “Feeling,” regardless of their individual characters or strengths. Thinking is arbitrarily reserved for Shapes with more sides, and "feeling" is for "Females" and Triangles.

In Flatland, just as in the real world of Abbot's England, it’s far easier to tell someone’s social standing from their behavior or the company they keep than by looking at their body. As A Square explains, a shape looking at another shape on a two-dimensional plane can only see a “straight Line.” Flatland is a world obsessed with social position, but the shapes who live there are only actually able to make educated guesses about the number of sides those around them have. It is impossible ever to know another polygon's shape as an empirical truth without using context clues. 

This is part of the reason for the ban on color in Flatland, which helped certain shapes pose as others. It means that the Shapes have to devise all sorts of methods to “see” each other. They are forced to rely on the help of environmental factors like the way other shapes recede into the "fog," their powers of deduction and the “art of Feeling.” Of course, these are all processes that also come with internal hierarchies and have their own social implications. This motif of imperfect perception recurs over and over, satirizing the arbitrary nature of social distinctions and making Flatland’s rigid laws seem even more absurd to the reader.

The more sides a shape has, the higher their social standing. Circles in Flatland, for instance, are considered to have an infinite amount of sides. Because of this, as A Square describes here, some Shapes desperate to elevate their children's status in society put them into torturous institutions to break and remold them into Circles. This process is so dangerous that A Square notes wryly that although it is “very rare” to find a “Nobleman” who hasn’t tried to turn his “first-born” circular, only "one in ten" children survives. The narrator’s satirical commentary, delivered as seriously as ever, points to the extreme allure of social mobility in Flatland's harsh world. The extremes to which these polygons go to advance their children's social standing allegorically refer to the lengths real 19th-century people would go to ascend the social ladder.

The names of places like the “Circular Neo-Therapeutic Gymnasium” and its horrible adjoining "Neo-Therapeutic Cemetery" parody the insane measures people took to educate and “refine” their children beyond their birth status. The glib mention of this cemetery is painful satire. Abbott is implying that the death rate for social remolding is so high that these schools need their own graveyards. The fact that most children end up in this cemetery rather than becoming Circles underscores the absurdity of the parents’ ambition. A Square also implies at the end that even if it works, the newly formed Circle is only really a Circle “by courtesy”: which is to say, not really a Circle to other Circles. This comment adds to the passage’s discomfort with the idea of trying to climb socially. In Flatland, as in the real world, merely fitting in with the aristocracy is rarely enough to gain admission into the real inner workings of power and influence.