Allegory Cave Research Paper

In the Allegory of the Cave, there is a group of prisoners chained to the wall of a cave all of their lives, facing a blank wall. The people watch shadows projected on the wall from objects passing in front of a fire behind them and give names to these shadows. One prisoner is freed from the cave and comes to understand that the shadows on the wall are not reality at all. Although the prisoners were experiencing something different than what was happening outside the cave, they were still in the same reality as the people outside the cave. In the Man Who Lived Underground, Fred Daniels, a young black man unjustly accused of murdering a woman, is forced into signing a confession. He escapes from the police by going underground into the sewer system beneath the

In the beginning portion of “Allegory of the Cave,” Plato introduces the story of the prisoners in a cave to illustrate the foundation of why some do not like change. He begins by explaining there are three prisoners in a cave who are bound and can only see the shadows of objects projected by a fire behind them (Plato 201). The author begins with this portion of the example to set the context for the rest of the allegory. Plato then goes on to describe how one prisoner is released to the outside world to experience the

When he goes back to tell what he has discovered to the other prisoners they do not believe him and do not want to leave. They would rather stay in the cave where they believe life is perfect. Those prisoners would be the people who decide to plug in. Once they choose to plug in the won’t want to leave. For instance, if they were to only be plugged in for 10 years and then be unplugged to either choose their next 10 years or stay unplugged, they would most likely choose to plug back in. They would choose this because that is where they believe life is perfect and the would rather choose to go back to that than go out into the real world and risk what they already have. The people who do not plug in would be the prisoner who escaped, in the sense that he choose the unexpected. He risked it all by exploring the real world. Most people would not choose to not plug in. They are doing the unexpected and would rather live in the real

In life, the world one lives in is always assumed to be the reality, without anyone questioning its credibility. As Iris Murdoch once said, “[People] live in a fantasy world, a world of illusion. The great task in life is to find reality.”(Iris Murdoch Quotes). In The Allegory of the Cave by Plato, prisoners are trapped in a cave and chained so that they are to face a wall and only see the shadows of objects that pass behind them. However, one prisoner is released and forced out into the reality, allowing the reader to understand that the world one sees and experiences is not the reality, but rather an illusion. Similarly, in The Truman Show by Andrew Niccol, Truman Bank has been growing up in Seahaven Island, a place created just for him to live in for a television show that is all about him. Throughout the film, Truman realizes that Seahaven is not the real world, and viewers see his journey to get out of this illusion, and into reality outside the false world. Both The Allegory of the Cave and The Truman Show prove that the physical world is an illusion that prevents one from discovering reality. The concept of illusion versus reality is evident in both works through similarities in plot, similarities in symbolism, and differences in character.

Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” has a variety of rhetorical devices that play a major role in the story. Right off the bat this whole story is an allegory because it has a very powerful meaning behind it. The story has metaphors in the passage that supports the story. There are personification that gives human like qualities to non living things. There are many more rhetorical devices used throughout the whole story that supports the entire meaning for example; metaphor, polysyndeton, personification and allegory.

The journey out of the cave represents a prisoners’ unwilllingness to change and a resistance to accept new truths. The prisoners have to force themselves out of the cave into this reality. Plato tells us that the prisoners are confused on their emergence from the cave and that the prisoners’ will be blinded once they had been freed from the cave. After a period of time they will adjust their eyesight and begin to understand the true reality that the world poses. The stubbornness to develop a different perspective is seen in much of today’s society.

Shawshank’s Redemption, an all-time best movie produced in 1994 starred and led by actors Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman. A story about two imprisoned men’s experience with the corrupted prison institution through their way of self-redemption. There is a line, which was well read by Morgan Freeman, I am particularly fond of. Here I quote ‘These walls are funny. First you hate them, then you get used to them. Enough time passes, you get so you depend on them. That 's institutionalized.’ A prison should aim at retribution, incapacitation, deterrence and rehabilitation. I am very well convinced that prison has served its first three purposes by depriving offenders’ freedom, but the

The emergence from the cave is an enlightenment of intellectualism, when all the difficulties and confusion of life is gone and only reality exists. Plato uses the shadow of fire as a metaphor for intelligence. The people who emerged out of the brightness represent truth; the freed prisoner. The chained prisoner would “look towards the firelight; all this would hurt him, and he would be too much dazzled to see distinctly those things whose shadows he had seen before”(Plato

Some individuals find solace in being alone; however, imagine being alone in a concrete cell for months or even years? Isolated from the entire world into a small box seems intimidating, but this tactic is used throughout the US prison system. Solitary confinement is as a disciplinary action on the prisoners to ensure their safety and serve as punishment. This issue has raised both ethical and practical questions on its usage through US prisons because of its benefits and drawbacks.

They are tied in such a way that they are unable to turn their heads. All they can see is the wall of the cave. The prisoners are chained since their childhood and have not seen the outside world ever. Behind them burns a fire. In between the fire and the prisoners there is a small path which is used by the people. Because of this they cast shadows on the wall of the cave. The prisoners are unable to see these real people that pass behind them. What the prisoners see and hear are shadows and echoes of the people whom they do not

They watch mere shadows on the wall, distorted and controlled images from “puppet-handlers” (Plato 193), who had set a wall between the prisoners and the true world outside of the cave, revealing the shadows of the puppets above the wall, fabricating the truth of the cave. The prisoners “would hold that the truth is nothing other than the shadows of artificial things” (Plato 194). Montag, from birth, had been a thoughtless member of his society, obeying the rules and never questioning why. He was at heart, a fireman. A fireman who had enjoyed to burn words, stories, and creativity, “It was a pleasure to burn . . . to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed” (Bradbury 1). His community had imprisoned him a world in which everything was for the benefit of an idealistic society where theoretically, everyone is happy, feeding him with lies. Truly a prisoner in a dark cave, Montag accepted the shadows without want for light, “Montag grinned the fierce grin of all men singed and driven back by flame

“Prison within prison”. That’s one way that correctional officials described solitary confinement. An average of twenty-two hours in a small, isolated cell is the daily enduring of a prisoner in solitary confinement. This movement began back in the 1800s, however, over the last two hundred or so years, heads still clash over the use of this method. Based on the research that I have conducted, I undoubtedly support the removal of solitary confinement in prisons. The negative physical, mental and sociological effects outweigh the potential positives that solitary confinement may or may not bring. I do agree that solitary confinement is a barbaric practice that has serious social consequences.

“The Allegory of the Cave” by Plato is about a group of prisoners that were chained up in a cave with their backs facing the exit of the cave, unable to see what was going on in the outside world. They occasionally would see shadows on the wall and would

Kevin Wright in chapter nine discusses about private prisons and how they are no worse or better than public prisons. Private prisons were created to be more cost-efficiency, quality of care, and recidivism reduction compared to public prisons. Some studies show that private prisons are no more cost efficient than public prisons and do not provide better care either. Most of the private prisons promise have gone unfulfilled and been having issues related to ethical concerns and corruption cases because of the private money invested for profit. Some scholars are in fear that private prisons are going to get too big and are going to turn into a big business that will come with corruption and everything private prisons offer will not be the main

Also, outside the cave realm, people were engaged in their daily work; however, a wall had been built between these two worlds and restricted the cavemen from seeing the world. They could only see the shadows of people along the wall and accepted those shadows as the reality (Plato, trans. 1997, p. 514b-515b). This masterpiece of Plato is one of the most famous and perceptive assay to illustrate the nature of reality. The cave stands for the state of most human beings, and the tale of escape from the cave is the origin of the true understanding. In this composition, Plato believes that the world is made up of two parts; the forms, and the reality. The first part, material world, which one can see, touch, hear, and smell is really the half-seen images of the reality of forms. Relying on one’s physical senses alone, trusting what one sees, or hears make him or her effectively blind. Plato, in the story of the prisoners in the cave, represents metaphorically how far is one’s perceptions through physical senses from the reality. Those prisoners in the cave who were kept there since their childhood, had been chained in a manner that they were unable to move around their heads and incompetent to experience the happenings and real things in their surroundings. They were only able to see the opposite wall and the reflections of the statues, objects and other items in the form of humans and animals which were projected by the fire behind them to opposite wall, they presumed to accept those shadowy images on the wall to be real. Comparing this situation from the story to one’s real life, it can be inferred that in most cases people just see one side of a coin while the reality is perceivable only when one be aware of the two sides. The allegory of the cave also portrays that understanding of the reality is obtainable