By: Andrew Lu

After reading the Flatland book and watching the movie, I concluded that they differ in language and culture, but are similar in structure. I highly enjoyed most of the movie and some of the books, and I wish to share a little about their similarities and differences.

The author of the book, Edwin Abbott Abbott, was born in 1838 and raised in London. At St. John’s College, he received the highest honor in mathematics. Later, he writes books (Flatland is the most famous) on great ideas and things you normally don’t think about on an everyday basis. His ideas in mathematics, written in novels work is widely published, and his ideas spread imagination in both people from his time to our modern century.

Flatland was written before the 20th century, and women at that time didn’t have the rights (such as voting rights, and many people were discriminating against women) they deserved. Since at that time, women didn’t have many rights, the author wrote the book in how most people at that time see the world: he separated women and men by making the women a line and men shapes. While in the movie, there is no segregation, and that’s what people nowadays prefer. Similarly, in both the movie and the book, the isosceles triangles are the lowest class workers, equilateral triangles are like merchants and traders, while the more circle you get, the higher class you get. Another difference was the transition from the introduction to the part where the sphere comes to visit. The first one explained a lot about how things work in Flatland, geometrically, whereas the movie told more of a story, relying on a dream, and since the movie does have to make us (3D people) visualize what is happening, the Sphereius was a circle in the movie, as it should’ve been a line viewed in Flatland.

Some major details were kept in the movie when they published it, which was originally from the book. Such as the great Sphere from 3D space visiting, to explain what that was to them. Also, some elements, such as the higher class you get, the more sides you have, as in both the movie and the book. We also know that in both the movie and the book, the main character visits Lineland, and tries to explain how “north” and “south” work, but the Kind of Lineland doesn’t have a clue as to what he’s talking about, so that makes him more hesitant to strictly follow what Flatland believes when the Sphere visits.

Some change the movie made was the equality of both genders. And also, Hex plays a major role in discovering everything about Sphereland. Also, the movie is a lot more modernized and fits more into our society nowadays. I liked the movie more, since it told a better story, and demonstrated a lot of the ideas while also not making it too confusing for the audience to comprehend. I also appreciate what was written in the book, which is a more mathematically advanced story, and relied heavily on imagining, which I was quite fond of.

After reading both stories, I was quite inspired, and I also wanted to know more about the 4th dimension.

NOTE: This was written based on Flatland the book, by Edwin A. Abbott, and Flatland the movie.