Response To The Allegory Of The Cave

Life for the prisoners goes on this way without occurrence until one of them is freed, led up outside the cave, and shown the real world. The freed person will realize that the truth of the shadowed reality is actually a falsehood. After this realization the person who visited the upper world is returned to imprisonment in the cave. Her eyes have to adjust to the darkness of the cave once again. However, this adjustment naturally takes a long time. As a result, the once free person can no longer see the shadows as well as she did before her release into the upper world. To the people who have remained in the cave, it seems as though going into the upper world has destroyed her faculty for seeing "reality." Some of the captives then say that trying to reach the outer world is harmful, and that anyone caught trying to loose themselves or another person for the purpose of reaching the outside will be punished. Plato says that the cave symbolizes the world of sight and the outside represents the world of knowledge. Plato also instructs people to "interpret the journey upwards to be the ascent of the soul into the intellectual world." Plato's belief is that in the "world of knowledge the idea of good appears," and that humans should strive to reach this goodness through philosophical thought.

Once the cave prisoners and Neo are released from their state of ignorance, they start to become more understanding of the outside world, as represented by the cave dwellers escaping the cave, and Neo leaving the matrix. As the prisoners are in the cave, watching the shadows pass on the wall, one of their prisoners is released from the shackles. Because of his natural curiosity, the prisoners turns his head to look outside the cave. Whilst looking outside the cave, the light from outside and will cause him to “suffer sharp pains; the glare will distress him, and he will not be able to see the realities of which in his former state he had seen the shadows” (33-35). Because of the looming darkness always present in the cave, the bright light of the sun blinds the prisoner momentarily.

When the prisoner turns his head towards the light of the fire his eyes hurt him and he is confused because he is unable to see the objects of the shadows he had been subjected to his entire life. It is because of this pain and confusion that the prisoner wishes to return to the life that he is accustomed to, and the reality he knows, the world of the shadows. We are asked to envision the stubbornness displayed by this prisoner to leave the world of the shadows, a stubbornness which causes him to be dragged into the sunlight. Upon seeing the light of the sun the prisoner is temporarily blinded, unable to see anything around him, blinding him more than when he was a prisoner of the cave. Eventually the prisoner’s vision adjusts and he is able to see more clearly. His mind will first be able to recognize the shadows, then moving on to reflections of objects in the water, and lastly the objects themselves. This new sight leads the prisoner to question the colours and objects around him. He questions what it is that causes him to being able to see all the things he can, compared to only seeing poor reflections of objects in the cave. The prisoner eventually concludes that it is the sun which illuminates all around him and is the source of his sight.

After the prisoner has gained new found knowledge, he feels pity for those who are still imprisoned and unaware of the world around them. He knows now that their skills and perceptions are useless in the real world. Plato says “…when he remembered his old habitation, and the wisdom of the den and his fellow prisoners, do you not suppose that he would felicitate himself on the change, and pity them?” (p. 3). It is unfortunate that most people are unable to leave the cave. However, those who do have the privilege of learning the truth have an obligation to go back and share with those who remain in darkness - to share with them as much truth as they are capable of understanding. “…before his eyes had become steady would he not be ridiculous? Men would say of him that up he

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.

The prisoners perceive the shadows as reality and remain ignorant of the world outside of the cave. Later in the story, a prisoner is freed and exposed to the sunlight. We can see that initially, the man is resisting what he

In the cave, the prisoners’ limited perception of the world is based on the shadows depicted on the wall and the freed prisoner has a higher perception because he has rationalized the world outside of the cave. As Socrates state “visible realm should be likened to the prison dwelling, and the light inside it to the power of the sun, if you interpret the upward journey and the study of things above as the upward journey of the soul to the intelligible realm” (Grube, p. 189), anyone who accepts rationalized ideas from

The men were trapped within the darkness of the cave and could not clearly see the objects, all they saw were shadows of the images projected onto the wall from what little light they had. These men are stuck at the first level of the divided line, the image level. When freed from the chains, they were able to turn their heads towards the light, and then with the help of the light the prisoners were clearly able to see the images for what they actually were. They were able to identify the objects. From there they created enough traction to leave the cave and go up into the light, or the good. However, they did not want to leave, this newfound knowledge scared

When a voice cried out, the prisoners assumed that it was being produced by the shadow they were seeing on the wall. That is how distorted human reality

Once one of the prisoner’s is released, he is forced to look at the fire and the objects that once made up his perceived reality, and realizes that the new images he is made to acknowledge are now the accepted forms of reality.

Its dazzling light was painful like he was exposed to the danger. The sunlight represents the new reality and knowledge. First, the prisoner is thrown into confusion, and bewilder with his first look toward the world. Though, he soon realizes what is reality. Shadows and echo that he believed as truth were reflections of real objects. He was just looking at part of the world. Like prisoners, people can believe in illusion since our experiences and point of view are limited. However, when the illusion is shattered and reality is revealed, people typically face unfavorable circumstances. They are thrown into confusion, question themselves, and conflicts take place among different groups. When something exist and that’s what we see everyday, it’s reasonable to accept it as a truth without doubting it. It is a natural human instinct that we believe what we see as the truth and

The Allegory of the Cave, also know as The Analogy of the Cave, Plato's Cave or Parable of the Cave is presented by the Greek philosopher Plato in his work “The Republic “ as a theory concerning the perceptions of human kind and compares the effects of education to the lack of education on our observations. The passage is written as dialogue between Plato’s brother Glaucon and his teacher Socrates.

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 prisoner can only look straight ahead, so only shadows can be seen by his vision. This makes the shadows appear to be the only real thing the prisoner knows. Eventually, the prisoner breaks the bonds of his limited vision and realizes that there are more real things in life other than shadows. The prisoner escapes from the cave and is dazzled by the real objects he observes as the sun illuminates his vision. The prisoner journeys through two realms, the visible realm that can only be realized with our senses and the intelligible realm that can only be understood with our minds. “Education isn’t what some people declare it to be, namely, putting knowledge into souls that lack it, like putting sight into blind eyes” (Plato, 190). From this statement, Plato claims that the purpose in life should not be a measurement of how many facts and figures one knows, but whether a person grows in one’s knowledge of reason and justice to find happiness for the soul. When the prisoner escapes the cave, he develops knowledge and reason, and is freed from the unhappiness of ignorance that are encompassed in the bonds of the

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