It is the last day of the 1999th year and A Square is sitting at home with his Wife, thinking about what his Grandson had said earlier that day. Aggravated, the Monarch attacks A Square, and he wakes up from his dream. Although A Square attempts to explain the nature of the second dimension to the Monarch, he fails to find appropriate words, since “left ” and “right” are meaningless in Lineland, and he cannot overcome the ignorance and narrow-mindedness of the Monarch. He learns that the world of Lineland is literally limited to an infinitely long line, where only two motions are possible and social interactions depend solely on the faculty of hearing.

In the second part of Flatland, A Square recalls a dream, in which he envisions Lineland, where he meets a line, who he initially mistakes as a woman, but finds out is the Monarch of Lineland. By indoctrinating the Flatlandians to “Attend to your Configuration, ” the Circles maintain power, limiting the freedom of lower polygons and women through oppressive policies and institutions, and immediately suppressing any rebellion through frequent executions. Flatland society is organized from the isosceles triangles at the bottom, then the equilateral triangles, square, pentagons, hexagons, higher polygons, and finally, the priestly circles at the top. While women are simple straight lines, the males are full polygons. In the first half of his treatise, A Square painstakingly describes the social landscape of Flatland, which is strictly regulated by natural laws as dictated by the Circles, the priests that make up the highest class. The narrator and protagonist of Flatland, A Square, writes from prison, intricately detailing the social organization of his country and recounting the revelations he has received from the sacred “Sphere.”

Flatland is a world that exists on the two-dimensional plane, where its inhabitants-literal geometrical shapes-live in a highly-structured society organized into classes based on the number of sides of a figure.

Edwin abbott abbott flatland