Comparison Of Plato's Cave And The Yellow Wallpaper

Plato’s Allegory of the Cave (“Plato’s Cave”) and The Yellow Wallpaper are stories that have intrigued many writers and literary analysts for a long time. “Plato’s Cave” is a common target of interest in the realm of literature because it is an allegory, or an extended metaphor, that, according many readers’ inferences and analyses, explains a few significant concepts of life, such as adolescence, facing reality, and curiosity. “Plato’s Cave” was written by Plato who, with Socrates and Aristotle, “formed much of the basis of scientific and philosophical thought in the West” (Plato: “Allegory of the Cave,” paragraph 1) in the 400’s and 300’s BC. While “Plato’s Cave” is a popular story to read, there is another story, albeit much more modern,

that has sparked curiosity in readers and analysts alike, and it is The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Gilman, born on July 3, 1860, in Hartford, Connecticut, is most well-known for her aforementioned story. She was also a social activist and a victim of severe depression, for which she underwent strange and isolative treatments. Many people believed that Gilman’s episodes of mental instability were the inspiration for “The Yellow Wallpaper,” because the narrator in the story experienced similar mental problems and a bout of insanity. The fact that Gilman’s story was written over a millennium after Plato’s story further highlights how different the stories are because the cultures of those times are different by nearly all means. Despite such differences, however, the two stories share a common purpose, which is of educating readers that flawed and naive ways of thinking can be disregarded by morals and the truth.

Writing Style
“The Yellow Wallpaper” and “Plato’s Cave” are from very different times, so they differ in syntax and word choice, but the most important difference in writing style is that “Plato’s Cave” is in the form of a dialogue while “The Yellow Wallpaper” is in the form of a narrative.

In “Plato’s Cave,” two characters, Socrates and Glaucon, engage in a conversation about an allegory of a cave, with Socrates providing exposition for Glaucon. Socrates's explanation of the cave has extensive detail, for an allegory is an extended metaphor. For example, Socrates describes how the people in the cave have been “in this [cavelike] dwelling since childhood, shackled by the legs and neck” (“Plato’s Cave,” paragraph 1), and that “they stay in the same place so that there is only one thing for them to look at” (“Plato’s Cave,” paragraph 1), and in this case, that is “whatever they encounter in front of their faces” (“Plato’s Cave,” paragraph 1). That means that the people inside the cave are shackled in such a way that they are always in the same spot and can only see whatever is in front of them. Socrates goes into further detail and mentions that “between the fire and those who are shacked… there runs a walkway at a certain height” (“Plato’s Cave,” paragraph 2), and that there are people walking along a low wall and are “carrying all sorts of things that reach up higher than the wall” (“Plato’s Cave,” paragraph 2). Simply put, there is a walkway between the fire and the people in

shackles, and people walking on the walkway are carrying objects that reach above the wall. Socrates explains the cave with that much detail to paint a vivid picture of a certain setting in the mind of Glaucon and the minds of readers, and the story is in the form of a conversation to introduce readers to two different points of view. “The Yellow Wallpaper” also provides the reader with vivid detail, though the style of writing greatly differs from that of “Plato’s Cave.” In “The Yellow Wallpaper,” a woman, the narrator, experiencing insanity and other mental issues is isolated in a colonial mansion, where John, the narrator’s husband, takes care of her. The narrator eventually finds herself alone in a nursing room with a yellow wallpaper that has a distinctive pattern. As the narrator spends time alone, she progressively grows more insane, and her sentences highlight her ever-growing insanity by becoming shorter and more choppy. At first, the narrator’s sentences are generally detailed, such as when she describes the nursing room as “a big, airy room, the whole floor nearly, with windows that look all ways, and air and sunshine galore” (“The Yellow Wallpaper,” line 32) and the yellow wallpaper in the room as “dull enough” and the wallpaper’s pattern as “pronounced enough to constantly irritate and provoke study” (“The Yellow Wallpaper,” line 35). As her insanity increases, however, the narrator becomes less descriptive, and begins to talk about her insanity. During this episode, the narrator wishes “[she] could get well faster” (“The Yellow Wallpaper,” line 65), and becomes paranoid since she is “quite fond of the big room, all but that horrid paper” (“The Yellow Wallpaper,” line 59). The narrator yearns to quickly revert back to a normal state of mentality and is annoyed by the wallpaper and its complex patterns. “The Yellow Wallpaper” and “Plato’s Cave” are written very differently, but they also have some literary elements and archetypes in common.

Literary Elements
While “Plato’s Cave” is a dialogue between two characters and “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a first person-narrative, they do share common archetypes that are of utmost importance to note for literary analysts. In “Plato’s Cave,” for example, the cave itself can be described as representing the mother archetype because it protects the people in shackles and blocks them from the sunlight outside. The sunlight outside can be described as representing the truth or wisdom archetypes because in the story, the shackled people will, in due time, be “set free from their chains” and “cured of their lack of insight” (“Plato’s Cave,” paragraph 16), meaning that they will be taken out of the cave to learn reality. The shackled people themselves, however, while inside the cave, can be described as representing the innocence archetype because they have not been exposed to the vast world outside the cave yet, so they do not know reality and can only guess what reality is by looking at the shadows of the people carrying things while walking on the walkway.