Similarities Between The Truman Show And The Allegory Of The Cave

The Truman Show and The Allegory of The Cave: Seeking Reality

In the Republic, Plato uses the Allegory of the Cave to express the claim that people only look at what is presented in the physical world that they live in as reality, when in fact it is more than that. This concern was expressed in the movie The Truman Show, where Truman Burbank, the movie’s protagonist, is living in a world where he believes is the reality, but eventually discovers that its reality is distorted. The Allegory of the Cave and The Truman Show shares similarities in their story, where both are trying to convey the message that we accept the realities of the world that we live in at its face value, without knowing that some of those realities are distorted, and we

need to break out and pursue true and knowledge to help us to understand the true nature of reality, because in the end, knowing about what is real is better than being trapped inside false realities.

In the beginning of the movie, the Truman Show makes parallels with Plato’s Allegory of the Way in the way that both Truman and the prisoners are living in a distorted reality in the world around them without being aware that it is the case, and both conveys the message that fixating on what is just the physical world around us will result in a warped experience with true reality. In The Truman Show, Truman was adopted by a television at birth, and throughout the years, his live was being documented by cameras and aired on television live without him realizing. The town Truman lives in, Seahaven, is actually a giant television studio used for filming the show, and that he was tricked into believing that the world he live in is real the world time, where all his friends and family members are actually actors. With the staged death of Truman’s father in a boating accident, Christof, the director of the show, was able traumatize Truman so that his fear of water will prevent him from leaving Seahaven, which is surrounded by water. Truman’s situation is similar to the prisoners’ situation in Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, where the

prisoners was fixed by chains on their legs and necks since childhood, so that they are not able to turn around, and all they can see are the shadows of the puppets on the wall that are casted by fire, in which they believe that the shadows are the reality (Republic 193-194). For Truman, Seahaven is the cave, and his fear of water is the chain that fixes him from leaving the giant studio, and the actors are like the shadows of the puppets for him, where they fool Truman to believe that they are real people, but they are merely the reflections of real people by pretending to be them. Both the movie and the allegory has the message that we are bounded to the realities that are presented in the physical world we live in, but we never question their trueness. Just like what Christof answers the questions on why Truman has not yet discover the true nature of his reality later in the movie, that “we accept the reality of the world which are presented”. We blindly accept the realities that are presented to us, just like how Truman accepts his life spent in Seahaven throughout his live, and how the prisoners accept that the shadows are the real objects. We are fixating on the objects in the physical world, therefore we are not able to see the true reality, because the illusions casted by those objects prevented us from doing so.
In addition, the movie and the allegory are also similar in the way that both Truman and the prisoner who escapes the cave later eventually realizes about the distorted realities in the world they live in, which both further emphasizing the message that what we perceive in the physical world around us are just shadows of the true reality. Throughout The Truman Show, the producers make a series of mistakes that results in gradually believing that something is not right about the world he lived in, from finding a falling stage light and noticing rain that only falls on him, to meeting he father again, when he believes that he father was dead for a long time, and to noticing that the car radio is monitoring his actions and seeing staff members behind the elevator’s backwall. When Meryl finally broke character in front of Truman and asks for the producer to do something to prevent Truman from harming him, Truman realizes that his doubts about the realities of the world he live in are not just wishful thinking, but all he can feel is distress because everyone around him is trying to keep him inside these false realities. Similarly, in the allegory, one of the prisoners is being freed and were forced to turn around, in which he sees the fire, but he is dazzled by the light, and realizing that the fire is what caused the shadows on the wall, doubting his original beliefs about the reality of the world he lives in, and when the prisoner is being forced to see the sun, he is feeling “distressed and annoyed” again for being forced to look at something that opposes his beliefs about reality, where the shadows are only the real things (Republic 194). Both Truman and the prisoner is distressed because Truman realizes that he don’t know what the actual world is like by living in the false reality that Christof has created for him, and the prisoner realizes that he don’t actually know what is a real object because shadows is the only thing he has seen throughout his life. Together, the movie and the allegory puts an emphasis on the idea that everything we perceive in the physical world is either an illusion casted by the physical objects, or reflections of the true reality, and when one is becoming aware that he or she has been trapped by false realities the entire time, one will only feel distress and is unable to grasp the concept of true reality.
The Truman Show further reflected on Plato’s Allegory of the Cave near the end, as both Truman and the prisoner that escaped the cave are trying to understand what is the true reality by seeking for knowledge and truth, with both ended up in the case that once they have found out about the truth of the real world, they no longer wants to go back and live in the world with false realities, which both adds on to the message about our perception of realities before: we are not able to see the true reality because we accept the illusions produced by the physical objects in the physical world we live in as reality, but we need to pursue knowledge and truth to break out and understand what is actually real, because knowing about what is real is better than being trapped in a world that full of false realities without being aware of it.

Truman eventually decides to escape Seahaven by facing his fear of water and sail into the ocean, in which he is even able to withstand the storm set of by Christof to stop him, and this results in Truman reaching the wall of the giant television stage, with him realizing that throughout the years he is being trapped inside a world that is not real. On the other hand, the prisoner who got out of the cave and into the real world at first was not able to look directly at the sun without pain, so he can only look at the objects that the sun casts its light on, but eventually he is getting accustomed to the light and he is able to look at the sun, and

realizing that it is the source of seasons, years, and life (Republic 195). For Plato, the sun represents truth and knowledge, which implies that the prisoners’ journey out of the cave as a journey for seeking truth and wisdom for understanding the true reality. This is applicable to Truman’s case too, where his journey on reaching the edge of Seahaven is his journey in seeking truth and wisdom for finding out the realities about the world he lives in. Furthermore, when Truman sees the exit door for the stage, Christof then tries to keep Truman from leaving by directly talking to him, persuading him to stay with the reason that “Seahaven is the way the world should be”, where there is nothing to fear for, but Truman in the end still decides to leave the studio, and go onto discover the real world. And for the prisoner, once he has gained the knowledge about what is real, he will “prefer to undergo everything” than going back to the cave again, even if there will be “honors, praises, and prizes” for him being the sharpest prisoners among them, according to Plato (Republic 195). In the Allegory of the cave, Plato also has the claim that one must seek more than what is just physical appearance, and reach the “intelligible place” that contains the transcendent, immortal Forms, to understand the fundamental Nature of reality (Republic 196). Based on this and the similarities on Truman’s and the prisoner’s decision in going back to the world they used to live in, both the movie and the allegory in this case are conveying the idea that by seeking knowledge and truth, one can find out what is real, and having knowledge about what is real is better than being a prisoner of a world that isn’t even real.
Overall, The Truman Show and the Allegory of the Cave shares many similar ideas on answering the question of what is real, and how can we know what is real. Both conveys the message that we might not fully understand the true reality because we are being obscured by the physical objects in the world we live in, but if we are to pursuing further knowledge and truth, it is possible for us to understand more about the reality, and having more knowledge about what is real is better than keeps getting trapped inside a world full of false realities.