Allegory of the Cave by Plato Analysis

The “Allegory of The Cave” presents a group of people as prisoners who have been chained together in a cave their entire life. The cave is opened behind them where there is a fire and in between the fire there is a pathway where people walk holding all sorts of objects; statues, images of animals, trees etc. also making the appropriate sound. So, what the prisoners in that cave see are only the shadows that are being cast on that wall and hearing the echo’s that come along with them.

For this reason, the prisoners would mistake appearance for reality. Eventually, one of the men is allowed to get out of the cave and take a look at the real world experiencing the real creation and that is when the Allegory of The Cave developed.

The main theme of Plato’s theory is that we, humans, are trapped in the conventional ethics formed by the people surrounding us, our society. Therefore, he alleged that the stuff we think we have learned through senses is not anything but a simple opinion. In order to have real knowledge of something, we must gain that knowledge through philosophical perceptive.

Corresponding to Plato’s statement, I agree with his theory “Allegory of The Cave”. Ever since the day we were born we were thought countless things, whether they were right wrong. We, the people, are much like the prisoners in the cave. The society that we live in today can be blinded and easily fooled. Whether its by the government, teachers, mentors, parents, religious leaders and especially the media. Nowadays you can instantly get “answers” on social media and it truly controls our minds. Social media not only tells people what they want to hear, but it is also starting to brainwash people. Many people believe that everything they see on the media is correct, just because they saw it on TV or social media. Society has given many people the impression on how they should or shouldn’t look. For example, girls these days see so much fake advertisement with models or celebrity people. In order to be meet other people satisfactions on how you should look, you need to be skinny, tall, colored eyes etc. The government only tell us what they want us to know, but where is my money going? Is anybody actually looking for a cure for cancer? There are restrictions to all types of information!

From my prescriptive, Plato was trying to say that we are so blinded by the reality that we don’t know how to think any differently because we are just so used to our way of thinking. This theory represents us in some way, us the society are the prisoners, and everyone else who controls us such as the media, government, mentors are the cave that they are trapped in. We know what they teach us or what they inform us, whether it is correct or not.

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