The shadows represent our experiences/perceptions. The journey out of the cave shows us reaching for the reality of the outside world by escaping from our chains of flawed senses and using our minds. The escaped prisoner represents the philosopher, like Plato himself. Being a rationalist, Plato uses reasoning and his innate knowledge to understand the concept of the Forms. The philosopher then goes back into the cave to try and share his ideas with the other prisoners.
“The Allegory of the Cave.” This complex summary of ideas is composed by Greek Philosopher, Plato. The Allegory consists of a fictional, yet effective sociological experiment, where men live underground, in a cave (imprisoned since childhood), tied and unable to move. Plato describes the caves inner workings; “Above and behind them a fire is blazing at a distance, and between the fire and the prisoners a low wall built along the way, like the screen which marionette players have in front of them, over which they show the puppets.”(6) This cave and his depiction of the strange environment is evidently representative of a society turned placid, where reality is determined by the continuation of fixed ideas. Plato asserts the idea that reality is determined by social order and physical location and the enlightenment of any human will occur only within a structured educational system. Corrective action is needed to repair the minds of humanity, who have long-lived in a world where continuity equals comfort.
Fires destructive nature is the reason why those that aren’t seen fit to be in Heaven, are caste into the lake of Fire. As the bible states in Revelation 20:15 says, "And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the LAKE OF FIRE." The fire is to torment and destroy the flesh right off of a person’s body in a constant never ending cycle. Furthermore fire has predominately lead the way for dark and sinister emotions. When people think of fire they don’t think of joyous and cheerful feelings.
“The Cathedral” and “The Allegory of the Cave” are two short stories that resemble each other in the need to break free from negative illusions. In the “Allegory of the Cave,” Plato describes a man named Socrates who describes an illusion. This illusion included prisoners in a cave who have been chained by their arms and legs. These prisoners are bound to the floor and unable to turn their heads to see what goes on behind them. The prisoners are only able to see what the puppeteers are casting on the wall, which they perceive as reality.
The hunger for success and power, the fatal flaw for most people, allows everyone to envy the ability fire has to consume without end. The firemen even express their admiration for “it’s perpetual motion; the thing man wanted to invent but never did” (Bradbury 115). The flames lick away at the most indestructible forces destroying what it can and comprising the integrity of what it cannot. The immense chemical power of fire translates to the symbolism of devastating power in Fahrenheit 451 as well. The total destruction of the power of independent thinking comes from the ideology of fire leaving the quality of life at an all time low in the world.
Explain the analogy of the cave in Plato’s Republic The analogy of the cave is an idea put forward by Plato to represent the human condition. It is meant to represent how we perceive what is reality and what is not. The main point is that everything we see is merely a “shadow” of its ultimate form and that reality only exists in the world of forms. He represents this by showing a prisoners ascent into the real world. The analogy starts by imagining a group of prisoners that are chained in such a way that they can only see the cave wall in front of them.
The other prisoners could not understand his fascination with this sort of outside world he had gone into. Usually when we don’t understand things we tend to shun them because we are not knowledgeable in them, which is the reason for the way the prisoners reacted towards the freed prisoner. This allegory can easily be related to different parts of our own lives. For example the idea of what beauty and sexuality is. This idea can be seen in a variety of ways depending on how knowledgeable a person is and understanding they are of each individual’s ways.
In Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, the scenario begins by describing a cave inhabited by three prisoners who have been chained and held immobile since childhood; not only are their limbs held in place, but their heads are also fixed, which compels them to gaze at a wall in front of them. Behind the prisoners is an enormous fire and between the fire and prisoners is a walkway, along which people walk carrying things on their heads including figurines of men and animals. The chained up prisoners interpret the shadows cast on the cave wall to be as real. Eventually a prisoner is released from the cave and permitted to be let out to see the outside world such as a river, the sun, the stars and begins to discover the ultimate truth. When the ‘enlightened’ prisoner returns to the cave and voices to the other prisoners how the shadows are not the reality they seem; he is brutally kicked to death by his fellow prisoners.
This also ties into Socrates’ “Allegory of the Cave”. In it, Socrates explains that if we are showed the same non-existent thing, we start to believe it. The people in the “Allegory of the Cave” are chained in a cave, facing a rock wall. The images presented on the wall are what they presume to be real. Without the proper teaching, they obviously believe what they see.
For Oedipus, ignorance would have been bliss. In the case of Plato’s ‘Allegory of the Cave’, once the prisoner is released he is forced to look upon the fire and objects that were his reality. He realizes these new images in front of him are now the accepted forms of reality. Plato describes the vision of the real truth in one way to the prisoners. Thus, they do not realize that they are looking at shadows on a wall and that there is an entire world outside the cave for them to experience.