Slavery In Plato's Allegory Of The Cave

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Within this modern society, children and adolescents alike constantly complain about the mental taxation of the education system. For many students, the curriculum teachers impose upon them seems uninteresting and unnecessary in terms of adulthood preparation. Today’s youth does not realize that an educator’s job is not to cram as much information in their class’s memory as possible, but rather to open a student’s mind up to a world of intellectual growth. Allegory of the Cave, written by Plato, describes a situation in which a prisoner escapes from the limited knowledge of a cave only to discover how incorrect his perception of reality is. In this narrative, Plato equates ignorance to slavery by using emotionally provocative imagery to demonstrate …show more content…

In Plato’s narration, the escaped prisoner returns to his former inhabitation in hopes of sharing his discoveries with others. Since his ability to recognize the shadows, in comparison to the other prisoners, is much weaker, “[m]en would say of him that up he went and down he came without his eyes; and that it was better not even to think of ascending; and if any one tried to loose another and lead him up to the light, let them only catch the offender, and they would put him to death” (Plato 2). The remaining prisoners refuse to even listen to the escapee’s description of the surrounding world, let alone try to comprehend it. Instead, they wish to stay captive, enslaved to the comfort of obscure shadows. Plato includes their hostility within the story to enforce the concept that ignorance is choice; each person possesses the capability to develop intellectually and the access to gain knowledge. Despite they have the opportunity to readjust reality, the prisoners deliberately choose to continue in this lifestyle of incorrect conceptions and darkness. By choosing ignorance, the prisoners become slaves to the misconstrued truths the darkness reveals and conceals to them. Although the Allegory of the Cave is a very philosophical piece, Plato employs various examples of imagery to help the reader connect with what the characters see. People easily manipulate knowledge and their interpretation of the truth for the use of evil practices. In response to the misguided actions of these individuals, Socrates

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