Plato's allegory of the cave

Lim Pei Wen 1106637

The Allegory of the Cave is described and implied that people who have not receive a real education, have not seen the real world, they only saw the shadow on wall which is reflected by the puppet, and they think it is the reality which happened in world.
Plato lets Socrates describe a group of people who have lived chained to the wall of a cave all of their lives, facing a blank wall. The people watch shadows projected on the wall by things passing in front of a fire behind them, and begin to ascribe forms to these shadows. According to Plato's Socrates, the shadows are as close as the prisoners get to viewing reality. Someone who understood the nature of the world and the whole of their society would depend on the shadows on the wall. He then explains how the philosopher is like a prisoner who is freed from the cave and comes to understand that the shadows on the wall do not make up reality at all, as he can perceive the true form of reality rather than the mere shadows seen by the prisoners.The prisoner who is freed from cave was compelled to look at the fire at first. He would be struck blind and try to turn his gaze back toward the shadows. 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’’, is in a certain way the cause of all those things .He conscious that the life of cave is a fiction and meaningless.


Although he would like to stay under the sun and make deep in thought, he won’t do that because his duty is return to cave and let others know these gnosis and the truth. After re-enter the cave, he will not be able to see anything in dark because his eyes are not used to it. He will blunder stupidly and nobody will believe what he said. People will laugh at him because his word sounded doesn’t make sense. Some of them will try to kill him because he wants to change people’s mind. He didn’t confront with the others prisoners because he need more time to adapt the dark in cave. In order to communicate with the prisoners, he needs to readapt the environment to communicate with others, even though he has to die.

How the plato cave fits to hero journey:The first stage of hero journey is “ordinary world”. The cave that prisoner live is their ordinary world. All of them live in dark and watch shadows projected on the wall,they all think that which is reality happen in world. Second stage call to adventure is one of the prisoner tries to go out of the cave, means that he accept the natural call.The process for going out the cave is difficult. The sunshine make he feel dizzy when he arrived the hole of cave (Crossing the Threshold) After he is successful to go out the cave ,he would be able to see anything because the sunshine is too glaring. He may experience the process from dizzy by sunshine, feel painful and gradually get used the sunshine. Finally he know that all of the light souce are come from sun,and the formation of shadow is because the sunlight shine through,etc. Sun is symbolized genuinely good, genuine knowledge and origin of the world ,all of this have discover by the prisoner .Finally he understand the truth and see the world as it really is (tests/Enemies, the ordeal, Reward). He decided to return the cave and tell others the reality of world.(Return,Elixir)


From the plato allergy of cave, I think that the prisoners who had bundled in the cave can represent the traditional values, ideals and beliefs. The traditional value had limited people to think out of the box, they don’t dare on try a new thing. The prisoner who is freed from cave represent they get rid of the traditional rules, brave to challenge all the unknown things.Even though they faced many difference kind of challenges, they still can be strong and tough to achieve their target.The allergory is good and inspire people.


sources: wikipidea