Allegory Of The Cave

In the Allegory of the Cave there are chained prisoners in cave who can only stare at the cave wall in front of them. At the back there is a long entrance with a staircase the width of the cave and a fire burning in the distance. They see only shadows projected in front of them from a raised platform and hear an echo that they attribute to what they observe. They talk about and name the shadows of objects they see before them. To them the truth are the shadows. Then one day one of the prisoners is released. He is told that what he saw before was an illusion. Once he is outside it takes a while for his eyes to adjust to the sun. First he observed the shadows of thing then their reflection and finally the actual object. Remembering his previous state he goes back to the cave and tries to explain that everything is an illusion but they laugh at him and think he’s crazy. They believe it best not to ascend and they choose to remain as they are. The cave represented opinion. The shadows that are cast on to the wall represented physical objects. The prisoners represented the common people (Welles).

Plato’s “The Allegory of the Cave” starts off with humanity living in a cave chained up to a wall with no ability to move. The only sight that these refugees can see in this dark cave are shadows casted on the wall in front of them. For their whole

An allegory is a kind of story in which writer intends a second meaning to be read beneath the surface story. One of the most important allegories ever to be gifted to humankind is Allegory of the Cave. Plato’s Allegory of the Cave is one of the most potent and pregnant of allegories that describe human condition in both its fallen and risen states. The Allegory of the Cave is Plato's explanation of the education of the soul toward enlightenment. It is also known as the Analogy of the Cave, Plato's Cave, or the Parable of the Cave. It is written as a fictional dialogue between Plato's teacher Socrates and Plato's brother Glaucon at the beginning of Book VII of The Republic.

The Allegory of the Cave means that, people do not see things as they really are. That mankind assumes concepts but they do not have the full picture; One reason is because we only have five senses. For example, in Allegory of the Cave, Socrates explains that the chained men see the shadows and assume that they are being cast from the real item. However the shadows did not come from the real things they were just illusions and models. It also means that as humans, we tend to believe what is in front of us and not dig deeper to make sure we are correct.

Has someone ever looked at you and immediately disregard you for you are just because of your ethnicity? Have you ever done it someone? Racism is a huge culture issue that we have not only in America, but in other parts of the world, but it does not matter the color of one’s. What really matters is the character they have withheld inside but are not given a chance to express because someone didn’t even bother to give them a chance. This is idea comes from the book written by Plato, “The Allegory of the Cave” where in the book Socrates speaks of man being in a dark cave all their lives not realizing the truth until once they reach the end of the cave to see that the light is the truth. The truth is the reality of life.

The prisoners have been in these conditions since their earliest stages of life. The cave, the wall, and the chains are all the prisoners have ever known. Behind the prisoners, there was a raised path. Above the walkway was a platform, where there was a fire burning, and in front of the fire, was a parapet, which as Plato described it , was like that of the screens Puppeteers use to hide themselves and have the puppets be visible . Each and every day, the prisoners see nothing, but the shadows of the objects and people passing between them and the fire. For their entire lives, the prisoners are exposed to nothing but those images and the sounds made by those walking around. These shadows are all they have ever known, in essence; these shadows are their only “reality”. As time passed, the prisoners would grow accustomed to these sights, later on the prisoners would match the objects with names and the familiar sounds to the images of the shadows (514; Appendix A). In discussing the allegory with Glaucon, Socrates toys around the concept of what could happen to a prisoner should they be released after having lived their lives in the cave, with the only knowledge the possess of the world, are the images and sounds by the wall.

In Plato's “The Cave” shows us a group of prisoners chained to face a wall. A fire behind them casts shadows on the wall their facing of a variety of different things however they can not see what they truly are. The prisoners only reality is the shadows and the sound they associate with these shadows. They truly have no understanding of what happening other than what they see on the wall and what they hear. This distorted view of the world

The Allegory of the Cave is to envision a group of prisoners who have been affixed in an underground cave. Their hands, feet, and necks are tied with the constraint that they can't move. What they believe to be the truth is just a shadow depicted on the wall of the cave. “Behind the prisoners is an enormous fire, and between the fire and the prisoners is a raised walkway, along with puppets of various animals, plants, and other things moved along” (Allegory of the Cave). These obscurities are the only objects the prisoners have known of during their lives, so they do not question them which leaves them in a blissful ignorance of the world around them. These prisoners are living in their own reality and are unaware of the actual reality that is ongoing in the background. The idea of “ignorance is bliss” is presented in Allegory of the Cave because the prisoners are living a life of ignorance. They live in a superficial world which they are perfectly content with. As this ignorance is presented, Plato shapes the prisoners to blissfully live in their surroundings. If one of the prisoners were suddenly released from the chains that hold his/her in his/her current state of ignorance, the movement would be uncomfortable, even agonizing. The prisoners would be released from their normal habitat. Plato revealed symbolism about the unknown in his work Allegory of the Cave. The shadows on the wall symbolize the

Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" presents a vision of humans as slaves chained in front of a fire observing the shadows of things on the cave wall in front of them. The shadows are the only "reality" the slaves know. Plato argues that there is a basic flaw in how we humans mistake our limited perceptions as reality, truth and goodness. The allegory reveals how that flaw affects our education, our spirituality and our politics.

At the beginning of Flowers for Algernon, Charlie could only see one side of things that he is exposed to; similarly, the prisoners of the cave could only see shadows. In “The Allegory of the Cave”, Socrates says to Glaucon , “The truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images” (Plato 1). Being chained limits the prisoners to see and hear anything but the shadows on the wall and the echoes bouncing off of it. However, shadows are never the truths; they are an exaggerated version of the actual person or self. What they see is a false image, but they believe it is true because it is what they

In The Allegory of the Cave, Socrates and Glaucon are conversing. Socrates asks Glaucon to image a cave, where prisoners are kept and have been kept since their childhood. They are each tied up so they cannot move, not even their necks to look behind them. They are forced to look at the wall in front of them. Behind them are a fire and a walk way behind the fire where people can walk on. The people on the walk way are making shadows of human and animal forms, including others objects as well. The prisoners have no idea that what is behind them is only an illusion. One of the prisoners is released from the chains and the fire blinds his eyes when he turns around. Once they adjust, he notices that the shadows are not real. He is then brought outside and the sun burns his eyes worse than the fire did. The prisoner’s eyes adjust and what he sees is unbelievable to him. He sees outside, the sun, the clouds, the grass, his reflection and so much more. When he returns to tell

While interpreting Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave’’ in which is a representation that described a narrative of the society of people in before Christ years. I realized how there was a major comparison of people in today’s society that reflected the same prisoner traits as the prisoners that were described in the dialogue. According to the Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave.” It described conditions of people chained at birth unable to function as independent individuals that were locked in a protracted dark cave. They were allowed to rotate their necks but could not stand up unless told to or leave the cave. Within this cave they could only watch a wall showing flash images and objects as if the prisoners were watching a play or movies at a theater. They believed that the pictures shown on the wall were factual in which they were just shadows of objects that were behind them. The objects reflected forms and puppet that were placed up by puppeteers to create shadows on the wall. The prisoners were unable to see the puppeteers and seemed as if they were watching a puppet show in the dark.

In his allegory of the cave, Plato describes a scenario in which chained-up prisoners in a cave understand the reality of their world by observing the shadows on a cave wall. Unable to turn around, what seems to be reality are but cast shadows of puppets meant to deceive the prisoners. In the allegory, a prisoner is released from his chains and allowed to leave the cave. On his way out, he sees the fire, he sees the puppets, and then he sees the sun. Blinded by the sunlight, he could only stare down to view the shadows cast onto the floor. He gradually looks up to see the reflections of objects and people in the water and then the objects and people themselves. Angered and aware of reality, the freed prisoner begins to understand illusion

In Plato’s essay, “Allegory of The Cave” Plato creates a story about three prisoners in a cave, through this he further makes his point that without knowledge our view of the truth is askew. Plato explains that the three hostages have been shackled in the dark cave their whole lives unable to see the real world. The only piece of actuality they can see are shadows of people crossing in front of the opening of the cave. These figures can drive anyone insane without having any real truth to what the images could be. Without any awareness of the real world just outside of the cave they are forced to adapt and therefore accept their own reality. Plato goes on to say that, “the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images” (122). The obscurities are significant because they are the only apprehension the prisoners have, they have nothing to compare it to. The actuality of it to the captives is something other than the truth would be outside of the cave. The forms on the wall are only just shadows, but to them that is everything they have ever known. Plato through his legend portrays

Socrates describes people in a cave since birth, bound so they can only see what is in front of them. There are shadows and sounds that can be observed but the source is unknown. Socrates says in 515c, “…such men would hold that the truth is nothing other than the shadows of artificial things.” Their reality is limited by their experience. Then a prisoner is freed from the bonds and is forced to look at the fire and the statues that were used to cast the shadows on the walls. He is overwhelmed by the revelations and learns that the shadows were not the reality.