The Themes Adresses in the Allegory of the Cave Essay

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).

On the surface of Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” it is just a simple piece, but the main purpose of the piece is to explain people living in a world of face value and having individuals break free from the main idea to create a new sense of what the world is truly about. In here, Plato uses the writing style of allegory to encompass the use of imagery and symbolism to explain his purpose. He also uses very clever dialogue with constant repetition to represent a bigger idea about the philosophy with chained up people living in a cave of shadows.

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.

The narrative of the world claims that the purpose of life is in reaching enlightenment. Whether it be religious or spiritual, many approach this long and often difficult process in hopes of discovering the ultimate truth of life. Unfortunately, not everyone is successful in achieving this salvation. The novel Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury depicts the journey of Guy Montag, a fireman, from illusion toward enlightenment. Similarly, the essay “Allegory of the Cave,” from Plato’s longer work The Republic, illustrates a prisoner’s climb toward enlightenment, beginning with an escape from illusion.

Plato characterizes the people who leave the cave as “enlightened”, and the “enlightened” one that makes a mission to enlighten others is symbolic for a philosopher. King is the philosopher in relation to “The Allegory of the Cave” because he seeks to “ create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise form the bondage of myths and half truths” (King 81) the same way the enlightened one tries to “free another and lead him up to the light”(Plato). King plans to remove the figurative shackles of the men in the cave, being the Negro citizens, and lead them to the light, which is rebuking racism. King yearns to help men “rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racisms to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood”(King 81). The clergymen are the men in front of the fire who present the reality for the shackled men, figuratively the shadows but literally the court. The clergymen want to use the court as a mechanism for the men inside to follow; the court is symbolic for the shadows. King hopes to break off the shackles form the men inside of the cave by letting them know that the court is a false reality, and all

In its most simple and basic terms, Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” creates an illustration of prisoners who are being kept in a cave; their crimes are never mentioned, but their punishments are beautifully described. Each prisoner, according to Plato, is kept within a cave and is chained in such a way that not only do they face the cave wall, but they are also unable to turn their heads, making the cave wall the only thing they see. Behind them and higher up in the cave is a fire. By utilizing the fire, there are “men carrying past the wall

The "Allegory of the Cave" is Plato's attempt to explain the relationship between knowledge and ignorance. Starting with the image of men in fetters that limit their movement and force them to look only ahead, this is the idea that all men and women are bound by the limits of their ignorance. Men and women are restricted by the limits of the education of their parents and the small amounts that can be culled from their environment. Images and shadows are representations of those things surrounding us that we see but do not understand because of our limited knowledge. As we obtain the ability to see things more clearly in the cave that is our ignorance, we start to then

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

In Allegory of the Cave, Plato conveys his message through the use of rhetorical device, repetition, and educational format, the Socratic method. The message explains that humans have preconceived ideas of reality, but they do have the power to achieve the truth or true knowledge. Ergo, it is necessary to spread the upper echelons of knowledge to others who do not possess it.

The Allegory of the Cave or also known as, Myth of the Cave, is a good example of explaining the feature of the way people think. It is a concept that demonstrates how humans are fearful of change and what they don’t know. Plato says that men are living in an underground cave and it is a situation. The Allegory of the Cave is Plato's explanation of the education of the soul toward enlightenment. Plato talks about being free, everyday life, knowledge, and essentially what he wrote to be true. I think that he was very unique with his writings because there are so many ways to look at the world and his way was just one. He was educated highly and is recognized as a philosopher to this day.

Before comparing Plato’s allegory to Derek Black’s story, it is very important to understand the allegory of the cave itself. The allegory beings with Socrates describing a cave to a man named Glaucon. This cave has a rugged ascent towards its mouth, which opens to the sun. Inside this cave, there are people who have been kept there as prisoners since childhood. These prisoners have their legs and arms chained, allowing them to only to see what’s directly in front of them: the backmost wall

The Allegory of the Cave tells of three people living trapped in a cave, never being able to see what goes on outside of the darkness. They see the shadows of some things but otherwise, they only ever keep staring at the cave wall. One of the three people gets free and goes outside for the first time ever. That person discovers new things they never knew or thought of before and they get a new aspect of life. The other two people don't want to go outside and are ignorant to what can be discovered. This story, all in all, is saying that people in life are always discovering new things, and when they do, they then have a deeper mindset of many things in life and more complicated thoughts about them. But this can only be possible if people can

The "Allegory of The Cave" is a story that describes life and how the physical world we live in is not the reflection of the real world. It suggests that life is similar to being chained up in a cave forced to watch shadows on a stone wall behind you. You cannot turn around and all you can do is spectate the shadows on the wall which are representative of things in the real world, that of which you have no knowledge of.

Similar to The Symposium, the cave allegory also has a reference to a Form. At the last stage of the prisoner's climb to the top of the cave, he sees the sun and observes the Form of Good. Since he was recently unaware of the Form of Good, he has reached a higher understanding, just like the boy from The Symposium.

Plato once said that, “Ignorance [is] the root and stem of all evil”. Ignorance is the cause of everything that is wrong and bad in the world since people are unable to see the truth. If people start breaking free from ignorance, mankind will become happier and more transparent. In the short story, “Allegory of The Cave” by Plato and The Matrix by the Wachowskis, they portray the idea that in order to gain enlightenment, one must break free from ignorance; which opens himself to knowledge; this new truth must then be shared with others for the good of mankind.