Allegory The Cave

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The Allegory of The Cave

Plato's “The Allegory of The Cave” states the objects we see are merely shadows of the real world. In the story, he explains how the prisoners can not see anything but the shadows on the walls and they are “chained” in life. Their only perception of the world is what they believe they see and hear in the shadows. The “chains” restrict them from the truth. People who perceive the world like this have a false idea on realism and never show their full potential in life.

In the allegory, he explains that we are “chained” physically and mentally. “What do you think? From the beginning people like this have never managed, whether on their own or with the help by others, to see anything besides the shadows that are [continually] projected on the wall opposite them by the glow of the fire.” We, as human beings, believe everything we see, hear, and touch are real and we never have doubt about it. Our parents, teachers, and friends all try to teach us and we believe that …show more content…

2 Kurucz
When we believe in something and then find out it is not real, it can really hurt us. “...would not the one who had been dragged like this feel, in the process, pain and rage? And when he got into the sunlight, wouldn’t his eyes be filled with the glare, and wouldn’t he thus be unable to see any of the things that are now revealed to him as the unhidden?” Plato explains that seeing the truth can not only hurt us, but also make us think differently too. When the prisoner sees the sunlight and the water, he understands now that what he believed was all a lie.

In “The Allegory of The Cave”, we learn that we believe in the shadows and not the actual thing casting the shadow. Yet, if we open our minds to the ideas we form from what we think is real, we can begin to understand what is true about the world. But, we will continue to believe that the shadows are real and be “chained” due to misrepresentation of

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