Plato's The Allegory Of The Cave

The Allegory of the Cave is a story written by Plato during the Classical period; in this allegory, it is described through dialogue between Socrates and Glaucon. The story teaches us about reality, self enlightenment, and human nature.The scenario has it as some prisoners are shackled and bounded so that they can only see what’s in front of them. There is a fire behind them and puppeteers that create shadows of the things that they hold on the wall in front of the prisoners. They are secluded away from society; one prisoner is freed and led to the surface where he faces actual reality. He is disoriented at first but slowly assimilates to the surroundings. After he adjusts and learns there is more to life than what he was exposed to, he goes

“SOCRATES: So now imagine that all along this low wall people are carrying all sorts of things that reach up higher than the wall: statues and other carvings made of stone or wood and many other artifacts that people have made. As you would expect, some are talking to each other [as they walk along] and some are silent. GLAUCON: This is an unusual picture that you are presenting here, and these are unusual prisoners. SOCRATES: They are very much like us humans, I [Socrates] responded.” (Plato 2) Everything used in the text is a form a symbols; from the cave representing the environment we’ve grown accustomed, chains representing things that keep us from having freedom to learn and educated ourselves, the fire representing manipulated information from society, the shadows from the fire broadcasting illusions and representations of what society shapes things to be, the prisoners representing actual people we can relate to, the sun representing the “bigger picture, truth and or more opportunity” per say, and the prisoner 1 representing someone who has escaped the cave mentality, all contribute to the theme of enlightening one’s self and stepping away from cave mentality, realizing that there is more to life and different