Allegory of the Cave Paper

Allegory of the Cave

In the Allegory, Plato matches uneducated people with the people in this story; they are in the form of prisoners chained in a cave. In this cave the prisoners are unable to turn their heads from side to side and all they can see is one of the caves walls. Behind these prisoners is a huge fire. The prisoners and the fire are separated by a mini wall. Then from what I understand is that these puppeteers hold up puppets that put shadows on that one wall that the prisoners look at. Since these prisoners are not able to turn their heads they believe that these shadows that are being displayed upon this wall are real people and objects walking behind them. One of the things that Plato said in this story that made it very confusing to me was when he stated, "And if they could talk to one another, don't you think they'd suppose that the names they used applied to the things they see passing before them?" When the prisoners are released they can finally see the real objects instead of shadows.

What I take from this story would be that Plato was trying to show the division from how your mind sees objects and the true visible world. The world we see has two types of visible objects. Also I think he shows how intelligent people have the same viewpoints as the so called lower class people. Overall I feel I got the point that Plato was trying to get across but I did not really like this story.