Similarities Between The Myth Of The Cave And The Truman Show

Essay Option 6

In this world we are born and raised into a certain understanding that things are a certain way. We are taught to believe that the way you do things are the way they should be done and that is the way they have always been done in the past because that is the right way to do these things. On the other hand, the way we view our world, our situation, or our current lives in our own personal circles may not be exactly what we have thought they were. Reading and watching “The Myth of the Cave” by Plato and “The Truman Show” respectively I will discuss the comparisons of similarities and differences, the significance of Truman’s name, which path would I choose if I was put in this position, and if these two stories were illustrated in Socratic virtue ethics how would

developing one’s character and allowing reason to rule how might these three virtues of wisdom, courage, and temperance be seen to play out for Truman, the director, the other people in Seahaven, and the audience watching.

Foremost, the similarities between “The Myth of the Cave” and “The Truman Show” would be that both bodies of work are showing that you have a person or people that have been put into a controlled environment from either birth or a very early age. The environments in which they are contained in for the entirety of their lives making them believe that their surrounding environments are all that they believe exists of their worlds, and they are taught that nothing outside of their world is better than what they currently are living in. Some differences between the bodies of work will be that in Plato’s writing the people are kept in a cave and they are shackled at the neck and the feet to keep them from being able to stray

away from their location in the cave where they were placed. Whereas for the Truman show, Truman is raised from birth on the island of Seahaven, and believes that he has every right available to him to be able to leave as he pleases even though we as the audience can see clearly that he is being contained Truman himself cannot tell that he is being held within a television set. From the view of the cave the perfect world would be a world where one wouldn’t be shackled to a wall, but would be able to walk and live freely in the open world allowed to experience everything the world has to offer without being detained in a cave, as for Truman the perfect world for him would be Fiji with Sylvia, granted Truman believes that his home in Seahaven isn’t a bad life to live, he would rather have a life outside of Seahaven so that way he can be with Sylvia the girl that he fell in love with while he was in school. I think that in a way we all have our own version of these stories going on in our own lives. Whether we are actually constrained to our current locations physically or not, we all in some type of way have a feeling deep inside of us that tell us that we need to be here, where we are at this moment. And, a lot like Truman at the beginning of the movie instead of trying to chase after all of our dreams we just lay back essentially and accept that the lives we are living are what we were made for, when in actuality this may not be fully true, there may be more for us out there that we should be seeking.
Secondly, Truman’s name to me is showing significance that he is named after the Truman Syndrome, which is a syndrome that states that patients believe that they are being followed by cameras, and start getting paranoid thinking that they are being watched and filmed for a show in which they have never even heard of. To me it sets the context of the movie to were you understand that Truman is being subjected to all this filming and coverage that is being broadcasted to the entire world to see all the time non-stop filming, and Truman never really understands that he truly is considered an actor or well the main character really for this show in which he never even knew was taking place, and it’s all about his own life and without his consent.
Additionally, if I could choose between having a life based on a lie or a life that was difficult and unpredictable but was based off a true and accurate perception of the real world, I would probably choose the later of the two, the option to have a difficult and unpredictable life based on the true world perception. I choose this option over the previous one simply because no one has a truly predictable life as it is. I would want to have a life similar to the one that I have already experienced simply for the fact that I believe that the life I had turned me into the man I am today. Granted, if I had any other kind of life I could have possibly turned out the way I am now still just by chance, or really I could have been completely different, which would have possibly had different outcomes with situations in my life that I am pleased with how they played out originally.
Finally, if we viewed the story as an illustration of Socratic virtue ethics Truman’s wisdom is shown to be where it is based off his level of courageousness and moderation. Truman’s whole life was basically scripted, if this had changed earlier in age then it could have changed his whole life essentially, if Truman would have been raised as a typical adopted child instead of thinking that his parents was his actual parents and not paid actors, lots of things could be different for his life, he could have never met Sylvia in school considering he wouldn’t have been going to the school in Seahaven, he also would have never met his friend Marlon. If we viewed this the same way for the director, then I think the movie could of possibly have went a different direction, Sylvia might not have supposedly moved to Fiji, instead he could have let her stay there where her and Truman continue to fall in love how they were already falling without it being scripted, therefore enhancing Truman’s life in that aspect, even though Sylvia would have been the one either way to expose to Truman that he was this star of a television show. For the others on the island, I think that they would have probably stayed the same considering that they are paid actors, and typically they will go based off what they are scripted to do instead of trying to go based off of what they think to do as their original thoughts and actions should be toward the situation at hand involving Truman. And for the audience in the movie, granted they could have just as easily stopped watching the ongoing show, I don’t think they understood fully that Truman was truly unhappy in his situation. With him being married to Meryl even though he had fell in love with Sylvia back in school, he wasn’t happy, hence the reason he always wanted to move to Fiji, and the audience would usually tend to believe that he only wanted to do so because he once told his teacher that he wanted to become an explorer when he grew up, when it was really to chase Sylvia.
In conclusion, these are my thoughts as to be the differences and similarities between both the writing of Plato and the film, as well as why I believe the significance of Truman’s name is Truman, which life I would choose if I could choose between the two evil’s being whether I would want a life based off nothing but a huge lie, or if I would want a life that is based off a difficult real world perspective, as well as what I thought it would be like with the Socratic virtue ethics. So what if this comparison of these two works was to happen in real life? I think that we would be okay overall, granted that people aren’t actually chained to the side of a cave wall only being able to see directly in front of them, completely mute from not being able to talk and knowing only one another and darkness from the cave, so really, if our world was more like the Truman show I believe that it would be ok as long as there wasn’t a group of individuals showing up out of nowhere to remove people from your everyday life when they don’t just happen to fall into the script to make the ratings go higher.