Discussion Questions
for
Edwin Abbott’s Flatland

 

Read:

Part I: chapters 1 & 2
Part II: all chapters

DQs:

1. What do you make of the Square’s experiences in the first paragraph of chapter 18? Why does Spaceland initially appear so horrifying to him, i.e., as a “madness” or a “hell?”
2. When, toward the end of his journey through Spaceland, the Square asks the Sphere about the next dimensions, what arguments does the Sphere make against the possibility of more than three dimensions?
3. What do you make of the Sphere’s refusal to consider the possibility of more than three dimensions?
4. What do you think Abbott is trying to tell us with this story about our ability to understand the world?