Allegory Of The Cave Rhetorical Analysis

In The Cave, there are a few key elements and symbolisms. The shadows represent the false illusions and reality that the prisoners, people cloaked in this false reality, believe to be the truth. The fire represents the thing that perpetuates the false reality, the puppets represent the true reality and ascending to sunlight represents the prisoners slowly gaining part of the truth. The relation of the topic of stereotypes being perpetuated by media to The Cave is as follows. The fire in The Cave is represented by the media, which perpetuates the stereotypes.

The Clouds a Greek comedy that satirized Socrates in his “Thinkery”. Being that it is a comedy, the context of the Clouds is aimed more at the absurd nature of Socrates “Logic Factory” and sophists in general. 2. What are the authors trying to accomplish in these works? How do their approaches to their subjects, their style of expression, and their claims differ from each other?

A symbol in the story is the shadows shown to prisoners locked in a cave. On line 20 it says,”...and they see only their own shadows that , or the shadows of one another, which the fire throws on the opposite wall of the cave”. The shadows symbolize beliefs. The prisoners can’t move their heads, so they only see shadows in front of them. Shadows can relate to society's beliefs.

Socrates as a wise man understands that if religion forms humans’ personality and views on surrounding, then it means that there is no place for you as a human being. Thus, Socrates tries to argue with Euthyphro to find the definition of goodness and asks Euthyphro questions. Euthyphro gives several definitions of goodness such as prosecuting his own father is an act of goodness, but Socrates quickly responses to him that it is only instance but not the definition. Then, he replies to Socrates that goodness is something that is pleasant to gods. However, Socrates is not satisfied with such definition and responses to Euthyphro that many of conflicts exist among the gods and what is pleasant to one god might be unpleasant to another.

In The Clouds, by Aristophanes, and The Apology by Plato, Socrates is illustrated in distinctive ways. In The Clouds, Aristophanes tries to expose Socrates and his followers, the Sophists. In his play, Aristophanes shows that Socrates is contaminating the young men of Athens, and he uses mockery to magnify a lot of the lessons delivered by Socrates. Plato, who was a devoted advocate of Socrates, portrayed his advisor in a positive way. Even though majority of The Apology is literally a speech narrated by Socrates, we can guess that Plato was intrigued by the story enough to twist it in a way that would highlight Socrates, and the picture was thoroughly diverse from that of Aristophanes.

Instead, Socrates chooses to question Crito’s request and comes to the conclusion that it is best for him to stay. After reading Plato’s Apology and Crito, I can conclude that according to Socrates human virtue is knowledge (wisdom). In this paper I will present two disputes that’s Socrates uses to prove what human virtue is. In Apology, one argument Socrates makes is that he is not wise. Socrates starts this off by explaining how Chaerephon went to the god Delphi, and Delphi asked if he knew any man that was wiser

Evolution of the human language has created unity in societies, communities and the population but it has always had the power of persuasion at the very beginning. People have always been influenced by others because of their expertise in rhetorical skills. Martin Luther King Jr., Malcom X, and Donald Trump have had a group of followers because their supporters were caught by their persuasion of their speech. Adolf Hitler was followed due to his prowess in rhetorical speeches considering his past of quitting art school and imprisonment. In the dialogue “Plato Gorgias” Rhetoric is debated whether it is an art or not by Socrates and Gorgias.

While reading Book 3, I was struck by Socrates’ views on what constitutes acceptable poetry in his ideal city, which would “expunge all that sort of disparagement [of death]” (386c). Socrates explains that this censorship is necessary in order to inculcate an ideal form of justice, claiming that some kinds of poetry “should [not] be heard by men who are supposed to be free and to fear slavery more than death” (387b). Here, I think Socrates means to say that we should have the strength to uphold our rights/principles of freedom, instead of fearing the unknown nature of death, which he also articulates in Plato’s Apology – “Well, now it is time to be off, I to die and you to live; but which of us has the happier prospect is unknown to anyone but God” (42a).

Plato believes that the society is like prisoners in a cave and one can only emancipate from its conventional beliefs by seeking knowledge outside the cave. Thus, the theory of Allegory of the cave can be interpreted from a political as it is open to many interpretations and touches many aspects of life. The allegory of the cave is about three prisoners being chained in a cave in such a way that their arms, legs and heads are immobile and cannot look at anything else besides the wall of the cave in front of them. Behind the prisoners there is a fire and between the fire and the prisoners there is raised walkway, along which there is a low built wall. Everyday people and animals outside the cave walk across the walkway behind the wall carrying things on their head and their back respectively.

In Book XII of “The Republic,” also called The Allegory of the Cave, Plato paints a detailed picture of the process in what it is to become enlightened. As humans we have limited perceptions of reality and we mistake these perceptions as truth and goodness. Plato tells us that what we are actually seeing are mere shadows of their true forms and is very clear in his point that traversing to the world of enlightenment is both difficult and painful. Not only that, but there will be those out there that are unwilling to seek this truth and seem to prefer the shadows. Plato asks us to examine ourselves and our beliefs and ask if these beliefs are biased or based on our own prejudices.