The Allegory of the Cave

The allegory of the cave is a philosophical writing in art form of allegory.

The main idea of this story is realism. Moreover, Plato wants to explain to us in what we make mistakes and how we are able to misunderstand what life is. Socrates said: “Let show me how far our nature is enlightened or unenlightened.”

There are two ways how we can comprehend this story.

Firstly, Plato desired to show that we might not figure out true reality, how Socrates said: “Human beings living in underground den, which has a mouth open towards the light and reaching all along the den”, as an example, we may say that we are unenlightened, and when somebody understands some new things we do not believe him and see only lies, such as in short of stories: “Men passing along the wall carrying all sorts of vessels, and statues, and statues made of wood and stone and various materials, which appear over the wall”. Plato wanted to explain that our things in life might be only shadows, that we believe in and everything is only in minds.

Secondly, many people think that Plato wrote about our growing up. When the prisoners sat in the chains, it was childhood. For instance, when people are young, they do not know what life and problem are, they see only shadows, only lies. Then, when the prisoners left the cave, he understood that his life before had been unreal, and this part of story we might connect with nowadays. As an example, when adulthood begins, people want to come back, but this cannot be, people are not able to return time.

After analyzing this text, we should comprehend that everything it usually might not be true, because we have remembered a lot of great historical people whose actions were out of the law. However, that could not stop them a...

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...s gaze back toward the shadows, as toward what he can see clearly and hold to be real? What if someone forcibly dragged such a man upward, out of the cave: wouldn't the man be angry at the one doing this to him? And if dragged all the way out into the sunlight, wouldn't he be distressed and unable to see 'even one of the things now said to be true' because he was blinded by the light? After some time on the surface, however, the freed prisoner would acclimate. He would see more and more things around him, until he could look upon the Sun. He would understand that the Sun is the "source of the seasons and the years, and is the steward of all things in the visible place, and is in a certain way the cause of all those things he and his companions had been seeing"

All in all, Plato thought that only enlightened people may rule in perfect city, only who know the sooth!