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There were many similarities to Brecht's Galileo that struck me while reading Flatland. One was the reliance on order. In Galileo, the church wants to maintain a very specific order. In Flatland, there is an extremely rigid order to life. Circles are better than hexagons which are better than squares which are better than triangles. Another thing was a theme of self-importance. In Galileo, the people want to believe that God's eye is on them, that they are the center of the universe. In Flatland, each dimension of existence cannot conceive of a higher dimension. Points, for instance, think that they are the universe. Lines think that length is the universe. Polygons only see in length and width. Even the endings of Galileo and Flatland are very similar. Galileo ends up imprisoned because he tried to tell people that the earth revolved around the sun. The square is imprisoned because he tried to tell people that there was another dimension, Spaceland. They're both locked up because they tried to undermine the set order and open people's minds.