An Analysis Of Keats Ode To A Grecian Urn

It seems like such a cliché to write that there is no truth. That statement alone feels like a pathetic cop out, providing no evidence and explaining nothing. Truth, in its most base and un adulterated form exists within our universe, but like the citizens of Well’s Country of the Blind, we have lost something. The human race has lost its ability to see, and we have become content to stare at images on the wall and accept them for what they may or may not be. It is not that we are unwilling to learn, it is that we just do not care enough to free ourselves from our shackles. Unlike the slaves in Plato’s allegory of the cave, we realize that we are chained. However, bondage is little price to pay for security. Of course we have natural curiosities

While this poem may show us that Keats is one who has seen the outside of the cave, it does not show us how we can all achieve beauty. In fact, many people just see this as a dull poem about a non existent pot. We are not conditioned to accept truth anymore because we no longer feel that it is our moral duty to seek something contrary to what everyone else has. We are not willing to raise ourselves but only want to equal our suffering with that of everyone else. This justifies the whole “is a murderer a success” argument. He is indeed a success, placing himself above what almost everyone else has done. Keats and that murder share the same percentage on the bell curve, but not because of intellect or any other arbitrary feature, but because they have found truth through exploration. They have decided that there is truth to be found, and it comes by rising ourselves above what everyone else

Well the rules of conduct are what bind us in the cave. We think, at least inside of our little conference room, that what is good is to achieve in high school, move onto college, and then get a high paying job that allows us to support a family. This version of the American dream has crippled generations of youth in our country for the last 60 years. Imagine how many women could have gone on to be scientists, if they weren’t at home working on the roast. Our rules and our expectations are our bondage, which we falsely believe is keeping us safe from something evil that lies outside the cave. There is no evil outside the cave. The cave is evil, restricting us from becoming what we truly are, an ingenuitive and ingenious race of people, who have been conditioned toward mediocrity. We are not given a choice at birth to get out of our bondage. Our nurture has taken over nature, previously the dominant force. No longer do the weak get trampled and the strong stay around to evolve, but all live together in a strange society, one that is geared toward safety, and not toward human