Role Of Women In Flatland Society

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Role of Women in Flatland Society Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin A. Abbott depicts a fictional two-dimensional world that “A Square” lives in. This two-dimensional world is used to satirize Victorian society and the strict social hierarchy. The role of women in Flatland’s society appears to be especially reflective of Victorian society at the time. As typical of Victorian patriarchal society, women have very few rights and are considered to be at the bottom of society. However, based on the breadth of women and other shapes in Flatland, it appears that certain shapes in Flatland have the same appearance as women from a distance making it an interesting contrast of women’s traditional role in society. In the two-dimensional world, Flatland, A Square lives in, the social hierarchy is based on the number of sides you have. Women in Flatland are straight lines. Soldiers and the lowest classes of workmen are equilateral triangles. The middle class is composed of equilateral triangles. The “Professional Men and Gentlemen” are squares and pentagons (Stewart 43). The nobility all have more than six sides, with increasing sides until they have enough sides to be called “Polygonal, or many-sided” (44). Above the Polygonal figures are the shapes of the “Circular or Priestly order” who have so many sides “that the figure cannot be distinguished from a circle” (44). As it is demonstrated by the classes of figures, the social hierarchy is based on the number of sides a shape has. The more sides a shape has the higher up in society they are considered to be. After spending a chapter discussing the inhabitants of Flatland in general, the narrator goes on with an additional chapter about the women in Flatland. This is another sign that the women might not have as much of a subordinate and low position in society as was originally thought. Women
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