LITERATURE: Flatland – Metaphor

This concept may be very familiar to mathematicians but to me it was a flash:

Although popularly everyone called a Circle is deemd a Circle, yet among the better educated Classes it is known that no Circle is really a Circle, but only a Polygon with a very large number of small sides.  As the number of sides increases, a Polygon approximates to a Circle; and, when the number is very great indeed, say for example three to four hundred, it is extremely difficult for the most delicate touch to feel any polygonal angles. (p. 35)

I love it.  As each generation gains an angle (or more) more than their father–since mom is a needle-ended line only–the additional sides, now shortened and of higher degrees, would eventually round out to a circle, the highest form of Flatlander.  What I see here as well is the hidden true nature of the ones in power, appearance being not only false, but very alike each other without close inspection.

This I don’t love so much, but understand that it was a comment on not the women so much as the patronizing mindset of the men of the Victorian era:

About three hundred years ago, it was decreed by the Chief Circle that, since women are deficient in Reason but Abundant in Emotion, they ought no longer be treated as rational, nor receive any mental education.  (p. 39)

Moreover, among Women, we use language implying the utmost deference for their sex and they fully believe that the Chief Circle Himself is not more devotedly adored by us than they are: but behind their backs they are both regarded and spoken of–by all except the very young–as being little better than "mindless organisms." (p. 40)

By the way, the improper use of punctuation is as it appears in my book–not of my own doing.

I do wonder how this book was taken at the time of its printing.  Did men recognize themselves as the pompous pricks referred to in the novel?  Did women, many of whom did recognize their state as demeaning yet saw the trade-off in being taken care of and full measure of control over their households, see this as satire?

Did they wish to have the Flatland woman’s ass of a deadly needle?

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