Editing Flatland (section)

==As social satire==
In ''Flatland'', Abbott describes a society rigidly divided into classes. Social ascent is the main aspiration of its inhabitants, apparently granted to everyone but strictly controlled by the top of the hierarchy. Freedom is despised and the laws are cruel. Innovators are imprisoned or suppressed. Members of lower classes who are intellectually valuable, and potential leaders of [[Riot|riots]], are either killed or promoted to the higher classes. Every attempt for change is considered dangerous and harmful. This world is not prepared to receive "revelations from another world". The satirical part is mainly concentrated in the first part of the book, "This World", which describes Flatland. The main points of interest are the Victorian concept of women's roles in the society and in the class-based hierarchy of men.<ref name="isbn0-465-01123-3 3">{{cite book |author=Stewart, Ian |title=The Annotated Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions |publisher=Basic Books |location=New York |year=2008 |pages= xvii |isbn=978-0-465-01123-0 }}</ref> Abbott has been accused{{weasel inline|date=December 2023}}{{by whom|date=December 2023}} of [[misogyny]] due to his portrayal of women in ''Flatland''. In his Preface to the Second and Revised Edition, 1884, he answers such critics by emphasizing that the description of women was satirizing the viewpoints held, stating that the Square: {{quote|text=was writing as a Historian, he has identified himself (perhaps too closely) with the views generally adopted by Flatland and (as he has been informed) even by Spaceland, Historians; in whose pages (until very recent times) the destinies of Women and of the masses of mankind have seldom been deemed worthy of mention and never of careful consideration.}}