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. Plato had a strong dislike for politicians as he believed they told people only what they wanted to hear, which is represented through them creating shadows of real objects (false hope) to the prisoners. The
After he realises that what he previously thought to be reality was in fact a lie, he tries to forget about his past life. Plato suggests that if the prisoner were led to the entrance to the cave, then this man would face the peril climb of the steep and unpredictable rocks around the cave. This journey out of the cave by the prisoner is the journey of the new philosopher to enlightenment and represents that the journey can be hard but, nonetheless, can be done. The philosopher will also be in the prisons shies when he struggles to comprehend the new world he has discovered. The process is meant to be seen as incredibly hard and trying for the philosopher as like the prison he has to break chains, his of society and climb the rocks, his understanding, to reach this enlightened state.
In Republic book VII Plato explains his analogy of the cave. Plato uses the analogy to help explain his ideological role in the two worlds which are the World of Forms and the Physical world. Plato states that the analogy would inform others how the World of Sense participate nothing but an illusion, therefore the true realism would be found in the everlasting World of Forms. Plato’s illation begins in a cave. The cave symbolises the World of Sense, a figure of captives are tired by their ankles and necks so that they are unable to change direction.
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.
The prisoners spent their lives debating what the shadows were as they couldn’t see the walkway and had no knowledge that this existed. The prisoner who could guess the quickest and guess what was coming next would be crowned the winner and be respected by the others. A single prisoner is then released one day and forced to turn around and examine the fire and walkway: “the unexamined life is not worth living”. The prisoner is then led out of the cave, reluctantly, as the light of the fire blinded and confused him. 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.
A cave is a dark, dingy place that a normal, civilized human cannot fathom of spending their life in. However that is not the case for these prisoners in Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. “Here they have been from their childhood, and have their legs and necks chained so that they cannot move, and can only see before them, being prevented by the chains from turning round their heads.” Reading this quote one can sense that these prisoners are pitiful. Restrictions are put on them where these puppeteers --as I shall call them-- are manifesting shadows. As one might think, “Shadows?” These shadows represent an object to the prisoner.
Silhouettes or shadows of these figures are reflected on the cave wall from the light of a fire. As the prisoners have never known anything else, they mistake these images for reality and think that this is all there is to life. One prisoner, becoming free from his shackles, is able to turn and see first the objects casting the shadows and then the source of the light. He makes his way out of the cave, painfully blinded at first by the brightness of the sunlight beyond the entrance to the cave. He now sees reality, and recognises the shadows below for what they were.
A number of prisoners are bound by their necks and legs so that they cannot turn around. They have been this way since birth and know no other life than this. Behind the prisoners are a low wall, a walkway and a fire that burns. From time to time individuals carry objects like marionettes in front of the fire and shadows are cast against the wall in front of them. The prisoners observe the shadows that flicker before them and have developed a game over time.
To inform others and infect others to join him is the real change. Unfortunately, rarely has the history seen somebody debunking the cruel truth to the public and not being retaliated. By trying to free those “prisoners in the cave”, a man is really risking being conflicted, putting in jail or even being sentenced to death like Copernicus’s destination of advocating his heliocentric
The Explanation of “The Allegory of the Cave” Plato wrote the Analogy of the Cave in his book ‘Republic’, he used the cave to try and show people that the world we see is a mere shadow of what true reality is. Plato uses philosophical ideas to make us question whether there is more to life than what we really see and understand. The “Allegory of the Cave” starts off as a story told by Socrates to Glaucon. Socrates was Plato’s teacher, so when Socrates got killed Plato wrote the Analogy of the Cave by Socrates and Glaucon but in fact it was actually Socrates and Plato that was going to say this. In this story, a group of people live in a cave underground.