Plato used this analogy to help his less educated contemporaries at the time understand why the physical world of sense is nothing but an illusion and that the intelligible realm is where the truth can be found. In the analogy Plato presents human beings living in a cave, which represents humans inhabiting the sensible realm. In the cave, prisoners are chained up by their necks and legs and are therefore unable to turn around. Since they have been chained up this way for their entire lives they have no experience of life outside the cave. Behind the prisoners is a low wall, a walkway and a large fire that lights up the cave.
This is similar to Plato's idea the material (body) trapping the immaterial (soul). Plato's prisoners in the cave are in a state of mind called 'eikasia' (image or likeness) this is due to the use of their senses that create a false reality. Plato describes this as the lowest state of mind of understanding, and carries guest work and opinion with it. Furthermore there is an unquestioning mentality with most of these prisoners accept everything at face value. This includes the shadows caused by the flickering light, illustrating the unsubstantial reality they are shown.
It is difficult to imagine what Plato meant by the “Form” of something so he created the “Analogy of the Cave”. The analogy begins in the cave. It represents the physical world that we live in. Inside the cave, three prisoners, facing a blank wall, are bound by their necks, arms and legs to stop them turning around. This is the only life they have ever known.
Plato’s Cave Plato believed in the idea of a cave where prisoners were kept and shown images on a wall by fire and people holding up objects. The images that were projected was the only thing the prisoners knew existed. The people holding up the objects control what the prisoners see and what they know. This is the same in the movie Dear Frankie. Frankie is the prisoner being showed the images and his mother is the person holding the objects.
Plato refers to untutored humans as the chained prisoners who can’t be able to turn their heads in the cave. The cave represents the world humans live in for the things they see do resemble their true forms just like the prisoners could only see the shadows cast on the wall, hear the echoes produced by the real objects behind them. They could not be able to turn their heads to see the puppeteers walking behind them and the fire that is producing the light that enables the puppeteers reflect their real objects on the wall. It is easy for the prisoners to mistake reality for the images in appearance. If an animal shadow is cast on the wall, the prisoners will talk about having seen an animal thinking they have seen the real animal.
According to Plato, the outside world represents the world of forms. The cave in Plato’s analogy symbolises the empirical world. Plato believed that the empirical world only the appearance of truth as it was constantly in a state of flux and that the empirical world has no form of its own, it is only substance. However, the forms in the world of knowledge are reflected onto this substance and the image of their truth can be recognized in this substance, based on the quality of reflection. The shadows on the wall of the cave symbolise the drama and objects in the empirical world.
Plato uses the description of “Darkness” to possibly imply there are false realities that we each have and uses “sunlight” to stand for being enlightened by the “new world”, which is what the released prisoner was to experience. The “cave” is referred to as the “little world” that they are living in. I feel as if it is just a small part of the world that they know V/S the Larger world they should explore They are not free because they don’t know what experiences is outside the cave. They have been sheltered and not allowed to see for themselves what life can really be. The “shackles” are like a symbol of how they all have this same way of living and thinking.
Plato's Divided Line Theory explains how the reality of tangible things aren't themselves but the idea of them. Since the idea is intangible it can not change, although it may be different than you currently perceive it as, and contains the basis of all traits that would be an imitation of its true form. The allegory of the cave illustrates this concept for a better understanding. At first all the man sees are shadows which I imagine to be an understanding of an idea that we presume because it is all we have ever known. Once he is released he first sees the puppets, then real objects at night, and finally their true form in the daylight.
This is why I strongly believe that no person is truly evil. I think that everyone is a good person but we all have an inner darkness deep inside us. When that darkness comes out to the world and humans do things that they are not proud of, it does not make them evil people, it just shows that we all have our own flaws and nobody is perfect. All people make mistakes and bad decisions throughout their lives, this is what makes us human. I believe that even though people make mistakes and make bad decisions it does not make them an evil person.
1a) As Morpheus says: “When the Matrix was first built, there was a man born inside who had the ability to change whatever he wanted, to remake the Matrix as he saw fit. It was he who freed the first of us, taught us the truth. As long as the Matrix exists the human race will never be free” (Matrix 6). The prisoners of the cave are trapped inside the cave. They don’t know about “real world” that is outside.