Roel of Violence in Edwin A. Abbott's Flatland

Roel of Violence in Flatland

Some people turn to violence when something does not go

their way, or someone says something they do not agree with. It

does not take brains to solve a problem with your fists; it just makes

people look immature, and uneducated. Fighting and violence is

more prevalent at Bloomsburg than in many of the students home

towns. It seems that people are to busy or to drunk to just sit down

and talk things out like reasonable people.

Violence plays a major roll in the novel Flatland.

It seems like someone is always disagreeing with someone, and creating a

conflict, as when the square resorts to violence by sending his

hardest right angle into a violent collision with the stranger, only

because the square would not let himself be convinced of the

mysteries of Spaceland, or if an infant whose angle deviates by half a

degree from the correct angularity is summarily destroyed at birth.

If we destroyed all the mentally retarded people at birth because

they have flaws, and are not like everybody else, or if everyone

attacked people just because of something they said that we did not

believe--if this happened all the time, we would completely destroy

the world.

The college scene is really horrible when it comes to violence.

Members of fraternities and sororities are terrible at staying calm,

and controlling their temper, because of alcohol, and other drugs.

When a person drinks he becomes this monster of violence, a

fighting machine. People lose all senses of right and wrong when

they have the beer muscles on. A slight bump of the arm at a party

can trip the switch of a drunk, violent person. Even the weakest

person can experience this amazing feeling of power if she drinks

excessive amounts of alcohol. In small towns about the only

violence there is to see is in the bars, and taverns. Usually it is the

uneducated, lower-class people just blowing off a little steam. Life

in a small town is for the most part simple.