According to “The Allegory of the Cave,” “ The Oedipus Complex,” and “ The Personal and the Collective Unconscious,” people 's behavior in society originates in the conscious and unconscious minds. Different people have different kinds of personalities which are caused by different types of education, environments, cultures and experiences. These elements strongly influence how they regard the world, and influence how their conscious mind works. When people act how they want it means that they use their conscious minds. However, these elements also compose the unconscious which consists of the processes in the human mind that occur automatically and are not available to introspection, such as saying wrong words. In this way, the authors …show more content…
An archetype, a typical character, is an action that represents the universal pattern of human nature. As Jung put it, “ The great myths express the archetypes of actions and heroes stored in unconscious by elucidating them for the individual and society” (927). He explains that the primality human archetypes are the persona, anima, animus, and shadow. Persona is an archetype that people can access social recognition to reach their goal. Anima is male imagery of women in inner lives and animus is female imagery of men in inner lives. Also, Jung indicates that men and women have anima and animus in their unconscious, and these two archetypes may cause desires of father complex and mother complex. Shadow archetype is the real face of the human mind, including primitive physiological impulses and desires. If people can not control their shadow archetype, they would produce malicious intent and behaviors. In addition, Plato argues, "My opinion is that in the world of knowledge the idea of good appears last of all, and is seen only with an effort; and when seen, is also inferred to be the universal author of all things beautiful and right” (871). He asserts archetype which accumulates by ancestors’ experience and idea, contains objects’ universal and general qualities. For example, a tree in human knowledge contains all …show more content…
The conscious mind and the unconscious mind both strongly influence how people behave in society. Neither the conscious mind nor the unconscious mind alone will understand the realistic and the truth. As Plato put it, “when any of them look towards the light...the glare will distress him and he will be unable to see the realities of which in his former state, he had seen the shadows..when he is approaching nearer to being and his eye is turned towards more real existence” (868). He argues that if people suddenly coming back to the den from understanding the real objects will not find the truth and justice correctly like human’s eyes can not suddenly accept the light from the dark or the dark from the light, so people have to have an accustomed procession to find the real truth. In other words, people understanding the conscious mind and the unconscious mind helps people to find the reality and truth. In fact, through understanding their conscious mind and unconscious minds, people can take action effectively in society. They can also make decisions more correctly and improve their awareness about their inner
The Allegory of the Cave by Plato, shows the contrast between sense experience and rationalism. The story explains that in the cave where some people have known nothing of the outside world and can only comprehend what they see based on what little they do know of their cave. The people have come to the conclusion what the shapes represent and what causes them and believe it to be correct and thus believe it as the reality of the world. However what they don’t know is that this is not the world and what they will soon find out is that the things they once saw with their eyes what they smelt, what they heard, what they felt were just shadows of real images and objects cast on the wall by fire. What this does is show that sense experience can be at fault because the one perceiving is at times is ignorant of the fact that they know nothing of the true reality of the world and its workings. One must be showed how things are in order to learn and thus no longer be ignorant but have now begun taking steps towards wisdom.
An archetype is a universal symbol. It is also a term from the criticism that accepts Jung’s idea of recurring patterns of situation, character, or symbol existing universally and instinctively in the collective unconscious of man. Archetypes come in three categories: images (symbols), characters, and situations. Feelings are provoked about a certain subject by archetypes. The use of the images of water, sunsets, and circles set the scene of the movie. Characters, including the temptress, the devil figure, and the trickster, contribute to the movie’s conflicts that the hero must overcome in order to reach his dream. However, to reach his dream, the hero must also go through many situations such as, the fall, dealing with the unhealable wound, and the task. By using archetypes in the movie, the viewer can obtain more than just the plot and better understand the true theme of the movie: to never give up on dreams.
In Sophocles’ play, Oedipus, the King, there are various instances where Oedipus tries to escape his destiny—enlightenment—only to discover the truth that he cannot. Similarly, in Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” the prisoner travails to understand and adjust to his newly visited environment. In both works, the men first had to realize their ignorance before they could begin to acquire knowledge and true understanding of the complexities of the human condition. Specifically, in Oedipus, the King, it was Oedipus’ illusion of himself as a man unequaled in leadership whereas in “Allegory of the Cave” it was the prisoner’s initial refutations of enlightenment being shown him until he realizes its intellectual, spiritual, and social significance.
The main concept behind Plato’s Allegory of the cave is to show how individuals perceive the world due to factors such as education. Throughout the video, Plato’s main consensus is strictly focused on the changes that an individual experiences after he or she is exposed to the philosophical reasoning behind a situation, rather than mere interpretations. This can be seen in the opening and middle portions of the video. The video starts with all three prisoners being tied up looking in a dark cave, simply seeing shadows and hearing echoes of ongoing events that are happening outside the cave. At this point, all three prisoner are completely naive to to what is happening, and they believe everything that they are told, because they have no reason to doubt the truth behind
Plato was a distinguished man known for its highly intellectual theory concerning human’s perception. This particular reading emphasizes the point that what we recognize as real from birth is completely misleading based on our tainted understanding of reality, and that what we see and hear don’t necessarily ensure the truth and the actual knowledge. Even though Plato’s “Allegory of Cave” was written a long time ago, we can still relate it with the society today. For instance, we, the people, are the prisoners, and the shadow, is none other than the television and media, whose role has made such a huge impact in how we perceive things in life. The modern day television relates to the thought provoking, excellent, and captivating theory of Plato in its controlled audience, the misleading reality, and the enslaved addiction.
An archetype is a human experience or symbol that is universally known and accepted. Archetypes can be images or stories passed on through history. Carl Jung, a prominent psychiatrist in the early 1900’s, used archetypes in his theory about the human psyche and how humans can recognize these symbols because they reside in the collective human subconscious. Some common examples of archetypes are The Hero, The Mentor, The Mother, The Villain and many more. Archetypes like these can be seen in everyday things like books, tv or movies. In The Complete Stories by Zora Neale Hurston there are many different archetypes in each story but three prominent ones are The Trickster, The Devil or Evil, and The Hero. In the novel The Trickster archetype
Imagine a group of people, prisoners, who had been chained to stare at a wall in a cave for all of their lives. Facing that wall, these prisoners can pass the time by merely watching the shadows casted from a fire they could not see behind them dance on the walls. These shadows became the closest to what view of reality the prisoners have. But what happens after one of these prisoners is unbound from his chains to inspect beyond the wall of shadows, to the fire and outside the cave? How would seeing the world outside of the walls of the cave affect his views of the shadows and reality? It is this theme with its questions that make up Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. It is in Plato’s Allegory of the Cave that there are several key ideas presented in the allegory. The ideas presented in the allegory can be related back to themes of education and the gaining of knowledge and in ways that can relate back to “us”, the people.
Freedom in mind, freedom in nature, and freedom in subjectivity of individual are three kinds of freedoms. However, freedom should be expressed within the limits of reason and morality. Having freedom equals having the power to think, to speak, and to act without externally imposed restrains. As a matter of fact, finding freedom in order to live free is the common idea in Plato with "The Allegory of the Cave"; Henry David Thoreau with " Where I lived and What I lived for"; and Jean Paul Sartre with " Existentialism". Generally, Plato, Thoreau, and Sartre suggested that human life should be free. They differ in what that freedom is. Plato thinks it is found in the world of intellect, Thoreau thinks freedom is found in nature, and Sartre thinks freedom is found in subjectivity of individual.
Plato’s Allegory of the Cave is the most comprehensive and far-reaching analogy in his book, The Republic. This blanket analogy covers many of the other images Plato uses as tools through out The Republic to show why justice is good. The Allegory of the Cave, however, is not the easiest image that Plato uses. First, one must understand this analogy and all of it’s hidden intricacies, then one will be able to apply it to the other images Plato uses such as the Divided Line, or Plato’s Forms.
"The Allegory of the Cave" and "The Apology" by Plato explore the methods in which people for themselves, usually through the cultivation of the soul. "The Allegory of the Cave" employs an allegory to highlight the importance of the soul, while "The Apology" focuses on Plato 's beloved mentor, Socrates, and his views on tur value of the soul. Both allegory and dialogue seek to stress the importance of the truth to caring for one 's self. The pursuit of the truth and the care of the self are intricately intertwined; one cannot do without the other. Additionally, both pieces challenge the reader from their complacency and forces them to re-evaluate their lives, calling for lives that better cultivate the soul and take care of the self. From
In order to understand Jung's theory of archetypes, the reader must first have an understanding of the reasoning behind them. Carl G. Jung explains the conscious mind by dividing it into three different psyches: the ego, the personal unconscious, and the collective unconscious. The ego is simply Jung's interpretation of the conscious mind. The personal unconscious is anything that is not presently conscious, but can be. The collective unconscious is a reservoir of human experiences that is passed from generation to generation. It includes the archetypes of self, which are archetypes for different kinds of people or characters in literature (Jung 67). They can be described as things such as déjà vu, or love at first sight. It is the feeling that what is being felt or experienced has been felt or experienced before.
In book seven of ‘The Republic’, Plato presents possibly one of the most prominent metaphors in Western philosophy to date titled ‘Allegory of the Cave’.
In the same way, his student Carl Jung talks about the presence of archytypes( anima and animus) in an individual’s unconscious self. According to him, boththe archytypes are present both males and females. Animus is the archytype of reason and spirit which is also present in females as males. And similary Anima is the archytype of love, care, com[passion which too is present in males as in females. According to him the socialization we receive in our life, strengthens a particular archytype and thus strengthens a gendered identity as the society demands.
Jung proposed that in addition to every one of us has ego and personal unconscious, we also have a deeper structure in our psyche known as collective unconscious (Hjelle and Ziegler, 1992). The collective unconscious stores hidden but present memories of human kinds and even the ancestors of human (Hjelle and Ziegler, 1992). It also represents the thoughts and feelings about something those shared by all human beings because we are all evolved from a common past (Hjelle and Ziegler, 1992). According to Jung, collective unconscious is universal and its nature is the same within each individual (Jung, 1981). Moreover, collective unconscious cannot be developed by a single individual but it can be passed along through heredity and is born anew in every creature (Jung, 1981). The collective unconscious also contains the pre-existent forms which are th...
Often, archetypes penetrate into the human mind without actual awareness as in dreams, myths or symbols; thus via those dreams the archetype becomes conscious. Subsequently, these archetypes assume a latent role in one's personality, and they become visible through repeated, similar experiences and through interactions with others. Ideally, the collective unconscious with its archetypes play a major role in the development of an individual's persona, one's true identity masked by their social identity. Moreover, it controls the shadows of our emotions that compel us to do wrong. Additionally, it balances the anima and the animus, the opposing sex sides of one's gender, so that the opposite psyches of one's gender do not completely dominate an individual. Another archetype, the self, plays an active role in unifying one's different aspects of personalities to express the best of it. In total, the archetypes, more than the ego, are responsible for an individual's social spot in