Behind them, out of their view is a walkway on which people walk across holding objects above them. Behind this walkway there is a fire which then produces light, which shines onto the objects and produces shadows on the wall that the prisoners are facing. These prisoners have never been into the outside world and the only things that they see, other than each other, are the shadows on the wall. Within the analogy Plato explains that one prisoner is dragged out of the cave, blinded by the light and then realises that the cave was not all there is in the world. They see different surroundings and actual objects, not just shadows and of course they are stunned.
Explain Plato’s Parable of the Cave Plato’s parable of the cave is an analogy of what Plato thought reality was. It tells us a story of a group of prisoners found deep within a cave. The prisoners were chained together and forced to watch a large wall in front of them. This was their life since childhood, watching this wall. Behind the prisoners was a large fire and between the fire and prisoners was a walkway.
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.
Then at the trial things do not go as planned and against all evidence against it, Tom is convicted because,"Atticus had used every tool available to free men to save Tom Robinson, but in the secret courts of men's hearts Atticus had no case..” (Lee 244). This really shows Jem how unfair people are and how they will do whatever to make sure they are not looked at wrongly in other’s eyes. This point in the novel is the main transition in Jem’s life where he realizes how cruel some people can be. Jem’s behavior towards others judgements against his father’s case resulted in him having to read to Mrs. Dubose, an angry, elderly neighbor. Jem
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 prisoners observe the shadows that flicker before them and have developed a game over time. They try to predict the movements of the shadows. They associate the sounds made by the individuals with the shadows as this is all they know. They think of them as true reality.The prisoners in this case represent the ignorant unenlightened individuals yet to discover philosophical truth. They are duped into believing that the shadows they see are the real objects in themselves or that the sounds the people make are being made by 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.
In his description of the parable of the cave, he describes prisoners in a cave ‘with a long entrance open to daylight as wide as the cave,’ the prisoners legs and heads are restricted of movement so they can only look straight ahead of them. ‘Behind them and higher up’, is a fire and between the prisoners and the fire is a road with a curtain ‘like the screen at puppet shows between the operators and the audience, above which they show their puppets’ (Simile of the cave). Men go past this screen, carrying tools and gear behind the curtain and the prisoners believe that the shadows they saw are real and that they were able to speak. The prisoners believe they are real because it is all they have been seeing since they were children. They never question the source of the shadows, they simply accept that they are there.
Plato cave analogy is that anyone who was not or is not a philosopher, are like prisoners in a cave 'Behold! Human beings are living in an underground den, which has a mouth open toward the light'. As prisoners they were forced to watch the shadows on the walls. These shadows were created by a fire, which were being manipulated by puppeteers. Furthermore, until they got to see what life was really like and not the artificial reality they have been experiencing.
Dooming Myths and Secret Allegories Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” and Camus’ “Myth of the Sisyphus” both attempt to explain the way people think or why they act as they do. The stories demonstrate the same idea, “without exposure to change, thinking is limited and unawareness is the result.” Both stories illustrate moral and religious attitudes. The “Allegory of the Cave” demonstrates how humans are afraid of change and what they do not know. Plato represents man’s condition as being “chained in a cave” since childhood with their arms and legs immobilized as well as their heads. They are unable to turn around and witness the fire burning behind them.