Analysis Of Plato's Allegory Of The Cave

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The Allegory of the Cave paints a picture of a system used by Plato to explain his ideas on intelligence and learning. In the deepest part of the cave there are people chained to chairs in a way that forces them to stare at the far wall and renders them incapable of turning their heads. Behind the prisoners there is a short barrier with a fire burning on the other side. Between the barrier and the fire there are puppets casting shadows on the far wall that the chained people are looking at. Beyond the fire lies the entrance to the cave and the rest the world beyond that.
Plato's writing describes the different aspects of the cave as being representative of the world and people view of it. The people chained to the chairs in the deepest …show more content…

The action of leaving the cave and understanding the outside world represents the process learning. In the beginning the man in the cave does not move when the chains binding him are broken, he must be compelled to stand up and turn around. Initially he will continue to stare at the shadows on the wall as he does not know that anything beyond the shadows even exists resulting in a lack of desire to see more. The person at the end of the cave can be beckoned to turn around, but he cannot be forced to; he must have a genuine desire to learn what exists beyond the shadows. Plato describes this turning around as the act of reorienting one’s entire way of thinking; one must turn their “whole soul” around.
As the prisoner turns around, the light of the fire burns his eyes since he has never seen its brightness directly before. The pain in his eyes as he turns around represents the struggle of learning; which requires hard work and new ways of thinking that may be discomforting to the learner. The prisoner is told that the fire and puppets are more real than the shadows he has seen his whole life. The prisoner, vehemently refusing to believe this information, is consequently dragged out of the cave into the world outside. Upon seeing the real world the man understands everything and is no longer in

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Analysis Of Plato's Allegory Of The Cave

Plato's Allegory of a Cave, Wachowski's Matrix, and Marge Piercy's Woman on the Edge of Time