Edwin A. Abbotts Flatland :: Abbott Flatland Essays

Flatland We are brought up thinking that everyone shares our views and that they are correct and the exactly right way of seeing things. In Flatland, a novel by Edwin A. Abbott, two men from various dimensions argue about which one of their societies is right and more superior. They accomplish nothing because each is so closed- minded to the fact that what they have known all their lives may be wrong. This is the case when it comes to homosexuality in todays manhood or anything that involves looking, acting, and thinking differently than us. A. Square and the Monarch of Lineland are closed-minded to the possibility ofthere being other worlds or multiple ways to seeing things different from their own. Outside Lineland all was nonexistent according to the Monarch. When A. Square tried to explain to him that the universe was made up of more than just straight lines and points, the Monarch called these suggestions out(predicate) and inconceivable (P . 46). A. Square shared his ideas with the Monarch because in his words he had to open up to him some glimpses of the truth (P. 47). Neither man could begin to convey the possibility that his world and his beliefs could be in any way inferior to those ofthe other. Yet the two men state their case for what seemed to be a unyielding while. During the course ofthe conversation, the Monarch called the Square and his ideas uneducated, irrational, and audacious (P. 51). The Monarch thinks if A. Square had a particle of sense, he would listen to reason (P. 51). Upon listening to the opinion that Flatland is lacking so much as compared to Lineland, A. Square strikes back, saying, you think yourself the perfection of existence, while you are in reality the most imperfect and imbecile (P. 5I). A. Square continues, claiming, I am the accomplishment of your incomplete self (P. 51). Neither the Monarch nor A. Square could be swayed to the other ones way of th inking.