Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (AmazonClassics Edition) characters

Also known as A Square

Appears from the start

A middle-class Square in the two-dimensional country of Flatland. A lawyer by profession, he explains his world's geometry, social order, and customs to readers he imagines living in another kind of space. He accepts many of Flatland's prejudices even while his curiosity makes him unusually open to ideas that its rulers suppress.

First appears in chapter 4

The Square's wife, a straight-line Woman under Flatland's geometry. Like other Women, she must move and signal carefully because an approaching line can be nearly invisible and dangerously sharp. Her practical reactions contrast with her husband's abstract speculations.

First appears in chapter 13

The absolute ruler of Lineland, a one-dimensional world whose inhabitants can move only forward or backward. He interprets everything through the limits of a single line and cannot make sense of the Square's claim that there is another direction outside it.

Also known as The Stranger

First appears in chapter 15

A visitor who tells the Square that he comes from a realm with three dimensions. From the Square's limited viewpoint he first seems to change size and appear inside a closed room, phenomena he uses to challenge Flatland's assumptions about space.

First appears in chapter 21

A young Hexagon in the Square's family who is studying geometry. His innocent speculation that three raised to the third power might have a geometric meaning gives his grandfather hope that a new generation could imagine dimensions beyond Flatland.

First appears in chapter 3

Flatland's highest social class, composed of figures with so many sides that they appear circular. They control religion, education, and government and defend the existing hierarchy by treating irregularity and unconventional ideas as threats to public order.

First appears in chapter 3

The lowest male class in Flatland, recognizable by two long sides and a very small angle. Isosceles Triangles supply much of the country's labor and soldiery, while the ruling classes regard their irregularity and limited education with fear and contempt.