The Allegory of the Cave

This is he finally reaches cognitive though. He thinks about his past life and the other still living this life of lies and pities them. Plato also suggest that the prisoners play a sort of “guessing” game of naming which object was which and what would appear next. It is settled that to the freed prisoner these games would be meaningless and if he were compelled to renter the cave and go against the ways of the cave, everyone who believes the way of the cave, as life would think he is crazy and try to kill

His body isn’t ready for the direct sunlight and his mind cannot comprehend the world in comparison to what he felt he knew. In time, the man is able to see that all of the previously “known” information he had was completely false but also that he must start a different journey in order to find himself as the way of life he was previously use to, in which guessing was the way of judging knowledge, is ineffective and useless to him now. Finally, the prisoner returns to the cave with a new base of knowledge. He tried to share this information with his fellow prisoners but after hearing about his travels and that they were in fact wrong the prisoned men said to him that “up he went and down he came without eyes, and that it was better to not even think of ascending” ("The Simile of the Cave." Republic, 1974) . He is then met with resistance in offering them help and freedom from their binds. They threaten “if anyone tried to loose another and lead him up to the light, let them only catch the offender and put him to death”, it is as if they feel that his “loss of sight” is death to them and they are perfectly happy with the information that they know to be true ("The Simile of the Cave." Republic, 1974) .

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).

I had an experience that each represents the symbol towards the Allegory of the Cave. My childhood was mostly in Jamaica where I lived with my father for two to three years. I can relate to the symbols from the "Allegory of the Cave".

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.

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.

The "Allegory of the Cave" by Plato represents an extended metaphor that is to contrast the way in which we perceive and believe in what is reality. The thesis behind his allegory is the basic opinion that all we perceive are imperfect "reflections" of the ultimate Forms, which subsequently represent truth and reality. In his story, Plato establishes a cave in which prisoners are chained down and forced to look upon the front wall of the cave. In "Allegory of the Cave" there there are two elements to the story; the fictional metaphor of the prisoners, and the philosophical opinion in that the allegory is supposed to represent, hence presenting us with the allegory itself.

When the prisoner makes his way back into the cave, he will have to readjust to the darkness, since he has been out in the daylight- however, he knows this does not matter as he has seen what is beyond this cave. The prisoners would not want be freed: the cave is all they have come to know, it is their reality; the cave is where they are most comfortable. Leaving the cave would mean they would have to adjust to new factors and face the fact that their whole understanding was based upon an illusion. Even if the prisoner goes back to tell the other prisoners about all that he has seen in the world outside the cave, they won’t believe him; they will not understand what he is speaking of. Those who live in the cave are accustomed to that life only; if someone leaves and discovers that reality is drastically different, then that person is going to have a hard time convincing the others that there is anything other than what they know. The person who tells them otherwise will be criticized and labeled "crazy" by the inhabitants of the cave because they simply don't know any

When the prisoner begins his journey, he is reluctant, like Montag. “And suppose once more, that he is reluctantly dragged up a steep and rugged ascent, and held fast until he 's forced into the presence of the sun himself, is he not likely to be pained and irritated? When he approaches the light his eyes will be dazzled, and he will not be able to see anything at all of what are now called realities.” This shows that like Montag, the prisoner has ideas of what he will encounter. As the Allegory continues, the prisoner thinks back on his past life, in the dreary cave, chained up and begins to pity those he left behind. “And 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? Certainly, he would.” Both characters realize it is a privilege to be in the situations they are in, even if they are alone. They're grateful to know rather than be stuck in their past, ignorant ways, like those stuck in the city and the cave. In both texts, the sun is a cause of sudden realization. In the Allegory of the Cave, the prisoner realizes there is more to the world than the shackles and the shadows he was accustomed to, while Montag realizes that time continues with or without you. Both realizations are vital to the path of enlightenment both characters

The whole point of the allegory is to represent to journey to enlightenment. The prisoners represent either the unenlightened that have not had enough experience to gain great wisdom or the uneducated that have not learned enough to gain great intelligence. And being thrown out of the cave into the outside world represents the process of becoming enlightened. Once enlightened they would of course not want to leave and to make them go back into the Cave would be cruel, as is noted by Glaucon. But as is explained they must be made to descend again among the prisoners in the den, and partake of their labors and honors, whether they are worth having or not” (873). Plato claims that these enlightened have a moral responsibility to bring their wisdom to the common people in order to help them learn more so everyone can benefit from the knowledge of an individual. This is certainly an agreeable prospect and one that is not seen enough in the real world. Once

It would never be an easy path to walk down, and it would take a lot of struggling. Only certain determined people will actually make it to the opposite side. Socrates says these most qualified people should be the ones to lead the public. I believe this is also true in today’s society. I say this because when it comes to election time, we as a country are not going to vote for an uneducated lunatic. I believe that the president should be someone intelligent with good morals and very qualified. In order to reach that high point, you must go out of your comfort zone, like the prisoner did. In life, people go out of their comfort zones all of the time. I’ve always believed that in order to achieve something you’ve never had/done, you must do something you’ve never done before, such as stepping out of your comfort zone. Only the best can be found when you make an attempt to extend yourself as a human being. I relate the cave in this story to the social norm. No one wants to step out of it because I their life, the norm is all there is. I believe the shadows would represent all of the other things that could be out there, but they have no desire to go find out what they are. They are too comfortable with what they have and haven’t gone looking for more. The cave is a comfort zone for the prisoners in Plato’s time and for teenagers today. Without the outside world, there is no curiosity, no questioning. I believe it is important to

The man ran up the hill towards the light and the end of the cave where he was temporarily blinded because he was used to the darkness inside of the cave. Of course this is all very confusing to him and maybe even angers him because he does not understand what he is seeing. Eventually this man will gain knowledge of the world and everything in it, from the shadows of the objects he saw on the wall of the cave all the way up to how the sun helps the earth. He will see that was he was made to see and understand was not reality but just was he was made to believe. This freed man now pities the other prisoners that are still inside the cave because he realizes how wrong they were about everything they know. Plato describes how if the freed prisoner were to go back to the cave and tell the others what he has seen that they would criticize him, laugh at him and tell him he would have been better off if he had never escaped. They even go as far to say that if another person were to be released that they should be caught and killed so as to not follow the same fate as the released prisoner.

It seems to me that Socrates has set up each part of this analogy to represent a separate part of the philosophers struggle toward truly becoming a philosopher and achieving the study of philosophy. The cave itself seems to represent the societal norms that will be forced upon the upcoming philosopher from birth. While the philosopher is being brought up knowing only one thing as the truth he must find the strength to break himself free of the chains that bind him to the non-philosophical souls of society and begin to question what is known as “truth”.

In this allegory, the men trapped in the cave can see only the projected shadows of the humans carrying artifacts, and not the artifacts themselves. Yet they still, as Socrates says, “hold that the truth is nothing other than the shadows of artificial things.” In this way, being down in the cave is the same as being unable to see the real truth to things, and being unable to reach enlightenment. The only enlightened ones are the ones who by some means can leave the cave and see things for what they are. Socrates calls them the