Similarities Between The Matrix And Plato's Allegory Of The Cave

Thesis: There are many similarities in the Matrix ( Wachowski, Andy, and Lana Wachowski 1999 ), The Allegory of the Cave ( Plato ) and Meditation I of The Things of Which We May Doubt ( Decartes, 1641 ). It appears as you take a close look at the Matrix that it is a retelling of “The Allegory of the Cave” with elements of “Meditation I of the Things of Which We May Doubt” in it as well.

The Matrix and the Allegory of the Cave focus on one central idea: What is real?. They engage the audience in a fictional world where people live in false realities without knowing it. They make us question our own knowledge. Their storylines connect in that the protagonist discovers that everything he knows is a big lie and now he must discover the truth. The protagonist is thrown all of the sudden into the real world and then, he continues to seek the absolute truth. Neo and the prisoner inquire whether knowing the truth is a blessing or a curse.

What if one were living through life completely bound and facing a reality that doesn't even exist? The prisoners in Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" are blind from true reality as well as the people in the movie The Matrix. They are given false images and they accept what their senses are telling them. They believe what they are experiencing is not all that really exists. Plato, the ancient Greek philosopher wrote "The Allegory of the Cave," to explain the process of enlightenment and what true reality may be. In the movie The Matrix, Neo (the main character) was born into a world of illusions called the Matrix.

Unable to know any better, people’s blindness to the truth about their existence throughout the ages has been relative to the questioning of reality. We search but are unable to the see the truth through the illusion that the world before us has portrayed. One might ask, how do we know what is real and what is simply illusion brought by our subjective view of the world? But when attempting to understand the nature of our existence, about why we are here, the complexities of life often make it difficult to interpret this subject. The film The Matrix centers on this same concept that the known world is an illusion. The movies core theme of reality and illusion is definite to the humans understanding of what the true meaning of life is. Ones

The similarities between The Cave and The Matrix are too uncanny. The description of the cave above, which is discussed in the first paragraph of Plato’s seventh book, can be portrayed similarly in

Having read the synopsis from The Matrix, the excerpt from Plato, The Republic, Book VII, 514A1-518D8 “The Allegory Of The Cave”, and the excerpt from Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy, 1641 “Meditation I Of The Things Of Which We May Doubt”, I am able to conclude that there are similarities as well as differences among these readings. Each question the state of reality in which we live. Is our reality a true state of reality or is it a state of mind we have allowed ourselves to exist in?

In “The Allegory of the Cave”, the focus is based on prisoners who are chained up in a cave and can only see the shadows of the real world. In this story one prisoner is released into the “real world” and tries to enlighten the other prisoners. In The Matrix, the main character Neo is living in a world controlled by a computer program and he does not know. He is brought into the real world by people that have been enlightened and he plans to help the other people. Even though The Matrix and “The Allegory of the Cave are set in different points in time and show some different points of view , they also have comparable plots, characters, and symbols.

In the movie The Matrix we find a character by the name of Neo and his struggle adapting to the truth...to reality. This story is closely similar to an ancient Greek text written by Plato called "The Allegory of the Cave." Now both stories are different but the ideas are basically the same. Both Stories have key points that can be analyzed and related to one another almost exactly. There is no doubt that The Matrix was based off Greek philosophy. The idea of freeing your mind or soul as even stated in "The Allegory of the Cave" is a well known idea connecting to Greek philosophy. The Matrix is more futuristic and scientific than "The Cave" but it's the same Idea. Neo is

In other words, because the prisoner has been exposed to just one truth his entire life - the shadows on the walls - he doesn’t understand what else is out there. He only understands the shadows to be truth. And, because his knowledge is so limited, Plato thinks he’s missing out on full happiness. Similarly, Neo is chained in a cave of his own, the Matrix,unable to realize the false truth in front of him. After going to a party and having a very important conversation with Trinity because of a message he received through his computer, Neo gets lectured by his boss for coming in

Imagine living through life completely bound and facing a reality that doesn’t even exist. The prisoners in Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” are blind from true reality as well as the people in the movie “The Matrix” written and directed by the Wachowski brothers. They are given false images and they accept what their senses are telling them, and they believe what they are experiencing is all that really exists. Plato the ancient Greek philosopher wrote “The Allegory of the Cave”, to explain the process of enlightenment and what true reality may be. In the movie “The Matrix”, Neo (the main character) was born into a world of illusions called the matrix. His true reality is being controlled by the puppet- handlers called the machines who

The characters in both Plato’s cave and in The Matrix both face the manipulator that had been manipulating them since birth and they eventually were able to be set free from the trickery. In detail, the characters in Plato’s cave were bound by chains since their childhood and since the beginning were shown shadows like figures in the cave and began to believe that the shadows were real. Moreover, this concept was shown in The Matrix when the characters were in a world that fed images to them since the beginning of their youth and those images became their reality. Both stories displayed how the characters were brainwashed since they were young to see a made up reality that was almost dreamlike, to hide them from the true world that they were actually living in. Furthermore, the similarity between Descartes Mediation I and The Matrix is that the characters began to question the whether they were living in reality or not.

The Matrix then relates with The Allegory of the Cave when Neo, a normal citizen who had been searching for the man in control of the matrix, Morpheus. Once he finds him, he has the decision to live in the matrix or return back to his normal life. As he chose the matrix life and continued his journey to understand exactly what it is, he finds it hard to accept the fact that this might be the reality no one else can see. The Matrix directed by Andy and Larry Wachowski and The Allegory of the Cave written by Plato both express the possibility that we are living in an alternate reality. Each movie shares similarities between the cave and the matrix world, prisoners compared to Neo, and the “shackles” that hold the characters back from achieving their

Plato characters in the cave allegory had been bound for their full lives in the cave by chains and had been deceived by shadows. The individuals in The Matrix were bound by giant machines that provided life to their bodies and super computers that provided artificial realities to their brains through wire connections. Moreover, in Plato’s cave allegory and The Matrix, the characters are set free from their distorted perceptions of reality by coming into contact with whom or what caused those

One difference is that Plato’s prisoner escaped and Morpheus helped Neo escape. The Allegory of the cave perceives much of what we see today within our society. Girls exposing their bodies is the new way to become a “celebrity” or be around celebrities. Our perception of real life is deceived by what we see on social media and our children’s perception of how they should

The Matrix is a place that has blinded the people from the truth aka reality and it’s like being born into a prison that you can’t escape. According to Socrates, Plate describes the cave and the people “like chained prisoners watching shadows thrown by the fire” ( Cottingham, 69). Plato was not actually in the cave. It is called an allegory because it is a story that it actually trying to tell you something else.