The Matrix – Virtual World

The Matrix is a movie around a virtual world that everyone lives in thinking it is the 1990s, yet they they are being stored in pods under a robotically run government. It exhibits and has the same concepts of Plato’s Allegory of the cave. The Allegory is a concept that basically tells a story where there are prisoners in a cave and all they could see was the wall in front of them. There was a fire behind them and the so called the “Puppet Masters” would make shadows on the wall with the light of the fire to entertain or lull the prisoners watching the wall.

Everything in the prisoners life was the shadows, all they ever knew were these shadows.

In The Allegory, hypothetically one prisoner gets out of their chains and leaves the cave becoming an escapee. He goes out and explores the world seeing it how it really is and with just shadow puppets. Later he comes back to the cave and tells the others what he has seen. He says that everything they know and conceive as real is not. The others choose not to believe him and go back to staring at the barren wall. The concepts of The Matrix and The Allegory of the Cave relate to each other in many ways. There are many misinterpretations in them both.

The Spoon in The Matrix and the shadows in The Allegory of the Cave are similar that they are both lies and made to seem real yet are not. Another example is the Fire in the cave is like the matrix system in that it projects lies and makes people believe in something that is made to be seen in that certain way. Also the “Puppet Masters” in the cave can be related to the Agents in the matrix are similar in that they both represent overseeing power in the government and control the people with little resistance. The chains in the cave are similar to the slime pods in the Matrix and are both representative of the average everyday person being locked up.

Another example of comparisons is the prisoner of the cave who escaped and Morpheus in the Matrix both are the only ones people who know the whole truth and try and tell the others. Moreover, when the escapee gets into the real world for the first time he turns blind for a little because he never have seen light that was brighter than the fire in the cave, likewise when Neo enters the real world from the Matrix, his eyes are sore because he’s never used them before.

Lastly, while in the cave the prisoner discovers sunlight from the side of the cave and that is what leads him outside and eventually escape, and similarly in the Matrix Neo takes the red pill over the blue one to expose the truth. All examples are the similarities between both The Allegory of the Cave and The Matrix. In 1972, President Nixon’s affiliation with the Watergate scandal shook the United States political system. President Richard Nixon was scared he was going to lose when he ran for reelection, so he hired people to bug and wiretap the office of the Democratic National Committee which was at the Watergate Hotel. The men he hired were caught because they had bugged the wrong phones and went back in to change it and got caught.

Many people did not suspect Nixon at first but then some people connected the dots that he hired the men that bugged the hotel. After being caught in his web of lies Nixon resigned from office before the impeachment trial started (Watergate Scandal). This is how everything you see is not always be how it is. An example would be with the shadows on the cave and the Matrix as a system is just an illusion. The people of The United States assume the President is a perfect person and can do what they want but they are citizens just like everyone else and the laws still apply. Like the agents in the Matrix they are there to keep things moving smoothly but they are not invincible. These are the similarities between The Watergate Scandal, The Allegory of the Cave and The Matrix. Martin Luther King Jr. was a public speaker and African American activist. He believed in a world where everyone was equal and African Americans were able to be as free as whites. Martin Luther King Jr. also fought for those less fortunate who did not have certain luxuries in life (The Nobel). He is like Neo who took the pill and was trying to help everyone still suck in the pods by joining the revolution and said to be “the one”. These are also the same qualities as the prisoner that saw the world for what it really was, then tried to tell his fellow prisoners.

On April 22, 2004, Pat Tillman was shot and killed. He was in the National Football League, but due to the attacks of 9/11, he felt the need to join the military to do what he can and serve his country. He put his football career on hold and joined in 2002. On April 22, 2004 his squad was ambushed on the side of the road and was reported to have been killed by enemy combatants. It was later acknowledged that he was killed by friendly fire after controversy of his death. This is an example of a different reality being painted in order to keep the public calm and preserve the image of the military (Biography). If there was no controversy, the government wouldn’t have told the truth of the reality that happened. This relates to the lies of the Matrix in that everything they saw wasn’t true.

Plato’s Allegory of the cave and the Matrix teach the lesson that reality isn’t always what it is portrayed to be. With the Matrix, Neo is living in an artificial world known as the Matrix, when truthfully, his body is being stored in a pod. In Plato’s Allegory of the cave, the only thing they know are the shadows, so that is their reality. One of these prisoners break out and see the world for what it truly is and is amazed with what he sees. In both, the main characters get free from their confines and explore the real world. Both storylines represent the concept that reality isn’t always what it is portrayed to be in their own, similar way.

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