Allegory Of The Cave
...in a new perspective. Given that humans are known to be stubborn, a new perspective or light is good for us whenever to opportunity is there. From Socrates and Plato comes "Allegory of the Cave." A story that represents the extended metaphor of mankind's journey, the journey from ignorance to truth.
"Allegory of the Cave" only allowed the prisoners to view shadows and life from a very limited perspective. They are not open to new experiences or sights; just shadows drifting past them as they watch in peace. Because they are so accustomed to this way of life, they have a pleasant, painless acceptance of truth. However, if reality were to be enforced upon them, they then would face the hard, aching ways of life. Once the prisoner climbs out of the cave and is fully immersed in the sun's rays, Socrates continues to explain the prisoner's confusion, fear, and blindness to the objects that he never thought to be real. "He will then proceed to argue that this is he who gives the season and the years, and is the guardian of all that is in the visible world, and in a certain way the cause of all things which he and his fellows have been accustomed to behold?" After his eyes adjust to the sunlight, he begins to see items and people in their own existence. Gazing up to the sky and into the sun, the prisoner recognizes them to be the cause of all that is around him. Socrates demonstrates this by declaring, "Last of he will be able to see the sun, and not mere reflections of him in the water, but he will see him in his own proper place, and not in another; and he will contemplate him as he is." Would the prisoner want to return to the formerly accepted reality of truth, or would he be content with his newly understood perception of reality?
Like Plato's prisoner, there is a girl living in the world that we as humans experience everyday. The girl, Sophie, finds herself...
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