This is the only reality the prisoners know even though it is only shadows. Sitting in darkness with the false light of the fire they do not realize that this existence is wrong or lacking. It is merely existence; they know no other or offer any complaint. The main point of the “Allegory of the Cave” is to give an example of the way we all live our lives. Plato represents earth’s inhabitants as seeing what we think is reality, as being only the shadow of true reality.
They see different surroundings and actual objects, not just shadows and of course they are stunned. All that they believed to be real and true was a lie and they have now seen reality. The prisoner then returns to the cave to tell the others of his findings but upon returning he is put down by the others and they dislike what he is telling him. Plato then says that upon his return the prisoner could supposedly be killed. The prisoners represent the citizens of the world within the analogy of the cave and the people who carry the objects are the politicians of the world.
“The Caves in Our World” In the story, “The Allegory of the Cave,” there are prisoners chained in a cave who have never seen the outside world, but only distorted views of people and the objects they carry along the wall behind the prisoners. In one sense, the cave could be seen as the darkness that people live in when they do not know Jesus. They live in a dark world, where the fire is Satan, who lies and distorts peoples’ views of things by casting the shadows on the wall. People who do not know Jesus are tempted and lied to by Satan. He makes it near impossible for those people to see the truth spoken by the Bible.
Name: Leopoldo Yoshinari Alves Moreira Class: Reth. & Comp. ID: #100110922 Plato - The Allegory of the Cave The way in which people look at and believe in things may not be the real meaning of what is supposed to be in reality. Sometimes people just see the imperfect reflections of the last form, which means that most of the times our ideas are distorted and thus escaping truth and reality. Moreover, a normal human being is different from a philosopher.
The prisoner reached the real world outside of the cave and, blinded by the sun, saw the real world in its glory and realised the illusion of the shadows. The prisoner returned to the cave with his enlightenment and tried to explain to the others of the reality. The other prisoners did not believe him, he was over-excited, blinded, confused and clumsy. The prisoners became frustrated with the man and wanted rid of the man disturbing their reality. In some versions of the story the released prisoner is even killed by the others.
Explain Plato’s analogy of the cave [25] Plato’s analogy of the cave describes some people who are prisoners and they are only able to see one wall of the cave. Behind them was a lit fire which gave light to be able to cast shadows onto the wall that the prisoners were facing. These shadows were cast by puppeteers who were behind a wall and held things up to tell stories to the prisoners via the wall. One prisoner is forced out of the cave, where he has been his whole life, to see the ‘real’ world. He finds out, after adjusting to the new sunlight, that the shadows were just representations of real objects and that the shadows he had believed to be real objects were in fact not.
A group of people have lived in a deep cave since birth, never seeing the light of day. These people are bound so that they cannot look to either side or behind them, but only straight ahead. Behind them is a fire, and behind the fire is a partial wall. On top of the wall are various statues, which are manipulated by another group of people, lying out of sight behind the partial wall. Because of the fire, the statues cast shadows across the wall that the prisoners are facing.
This shows that only certain people in the world are willing and able to discover truth. Since most of the cavemen do not have any chance to leave the cave or even turn their necks, they assume that the shadows are the real objects. This parallels the situation the villagers are in. People tend to perceive false and wrong things as if they were real. Both stories make a point that most humans live in an imagined or falsely perceived world without knowing the truth or having the willingness to accept knowledge.
Plato’s Analogy Of The Cave The prisoners represent the ignorant, narrow minded society. They have no understanding of anything other than what they see. Their chains hold them back from the truth and they can only understand when they are released. The shadows fool the prisoners in to not seeing things in their true form, making them misinterpret what they see. The fire represents the truth to the narrow minded.
Having a mood disorder and dealing with self-injurious behavior is like being in a mental cave. It’s dark, and therefore, I couldn’t see things clearly. Everything is in a fog, and images are unclear in my head. Plato states that “the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images” (Plato 450). It simply means that what we see is what we believe to be true because we’ve never seen anything to suggest it to be otherwise.