preview

The Allegory Of The Cave In Plato's The Republic

Decent Essays

In Plato’s novel, The Republic, we analyzed throughout book VII the allegory of the cave and the aspects that contribute towards its meaning. Through symbolic and allegorical context, the reader is about to decipher the meaning behind the cave and the various “levels” contributed towards it. The concept of the caves allegory holds a substantial influence over humanity by stating that things in the physical world are flawed perceptions of ideal forms.

The connotation pertaining to the cave can be interpreted as metaphor about the prisoners, detained their entire life in a dark, isolated cave with no direction or perceptual experience of the literal world. As a result of being there all their lives they obtain an altered view of reality which was fixated off of false interpretations. One major example of this was through the shadows off the wall explained in …show more content…

The shadows represent people who accept the evidence through experience and disregard logical reasonings. We can see this directly through the prisoners believing the shadows are the truth due to their only prior knowledge being limited to life inside the cave. Whereas the game mentioned in the book symbolizes how the wisdom reiterated by the person whose inception of the truth is disoriented by the falsities. However, they continued to be are praised for empirical knowledge they present. An example of this would be when prisoner returns to the cave and present their advanced evidence of reality to the others. Lastly, another level of the allegory is known as the return. The meaning of it can best be described to embody the idea that once they are exposed to the true meaning of reality their perception is completely changed. Again, this can be found when the escapee returns back to the cave and enlightens the others about the knowledge they have been deprived

Get Access