Essay About Simile of the Cave

eyes which are not exposed to such intensities of light, the moment he sets outside the cave. After some time of exposure to the sun, his eyes finally begins slowly adapt to the sun; he gradually begins to see the reflections of people and the objects in the water. He finally learns things; he is now able to look at the sun directly and see the people other objects as they are.

The prisoner, therefore, experiences new things outside the cave. He is then taken back into the cave and therefore he finds his new pair of eyes not suitable for the life inside the cave and things again appears strange to him, generating mockery from his colleagues in prison. After being returned to the cave the prisoner now realizes that the things outside the cave are more superior and there has a strong wish that his fellows should also be given an opportunity to gain the same experience as him in the sunlight.

The prisoner will not be able to see if he is returned to the cave for his eyes have become accustomed to the sunlight. The inmates who had remained in the cave would perceive that the returning prisoner had been harmed while outside the cave and therefore they may not want to have the same experience outside the prison and therefore if they were in a position to react they would kill anyone who might attempt to take them outside the cave.

A cave is a large underground chamber located on a hillside or cliff. The conditions inside the caves are usually hollow and filled with darkness. The use of a cave with people

who are chained in this allegory is a symbolize people who believe that traditionally the people who had not been exposed to the modern knowledge only believes that knowledge only comes from the things that we see and hear in the environment.

The allegory is therefore used symbolically to infer to individuals who are ignorant. It is indicated that these people have been prisoners since childhood, it, therefore, means that for a long time these people are not willing to change and embrace new knowledge. They are resistant to the things that they believe in and over the years they have held on to the things that they believe in (Cruz-Neira, 1993).

Inside the cave, the prisoners are only allowed to see the shadows of the puppets that are carried by the people passing behind the walls. The shadow is a symbol that not all the things that we hear are true and therefore and therefore we should always make a point of proving such kinds of things before believing in them.

Through education, people can, therefore, acquire the knowledge that can be used to seek for the facts about certain things before believing in them. To the prisoners, the sounds of the echoes behind the wall and the images that they were seeing were real, to the people who were outside the cave these sounds and shadows were not real, and this could be proven.

The prisoner who is allowed outside the cave is used to represent the philosopher who is seeking for knowledge that is beyond what he knows. At first, the prisoner is blinded by the sharp rays coming from the sun, but after sometime he

adjusts to the situation outside the cave. Symbolically this means that before getting acquainted with the new knowledge, it is hard for one to make any references from the new knowledge but with time they begin to learn until they are finally able to understand everything and one may realize how ignorant they have been in the past.

When the inmate is returned to the cave, he gets blinded by the darkness inside, and this makes the other prisoners infer that he has been harmed inside the game and swears never to allow anyone to drag them outside the cave (Cruz-Neira,1993). The blinding of the escaped prisoner back into the cave infers that he has already acquired the knowledge and therefore he can no longer live in that kind of ignorance anymore. The prisoners who remained inside the cave are also symbolically used to mean that once people becomes aware that an individual has gained some philosophical knowledge begin to fear the philosophical truths. They also laugh at the escaped prisoner when he finds that things are strange in the cave, this is an illustration of how people may be ignorant to the philosophical truth (Cruz-Neira,1993).

The cage and the chained prisoners can also be used to refer to the government in which the citizens are forced to live under unbearable conditions while the government does not raise concern over the same situation. Some of the factors that can lead to this maybe as a result of the high rate of corruption among the leaders. To the citizens, life is seen to be so hard while the officials represented by the captors of the prisoners seem to

be enjoying life. The prisoners are only allowed to see the shadows of the puppets and the sounds from the echoes; this is a sign that the people who have inflicted such conditions to the citizens are not concerned with their sufferings.

The prisoner, who escapes from the cage, is first blinded by the presence of the sunlight but later comes to adapt to it. This infers that, some if the people who are living under the unbearable situations may also want to get some freedom and end their sufferings. At first he is blinded, this means that the free individual cannot believe that in the actual sense some people are also enjoying life while for them it is a struggle (Cruz-Neira,1993).

The need to get off the cage also infers to the need for one to learn the truth in the society. Getting out of the cage symbolically, therefore, means the ability to know the truth. When taken back to the cave, he is again blinded, this means that he has learnt the truth and can no longer live underlies. The prisoners believe that their fellow has been harmed in his journey in his desire to find the truth and therefore swears never to attempt rebelling in any way as doing so is very risky. This shows the level of ignorance that exists among the ordinary people.

Plato has effectively used the allegory of the cave to depict the perception of the people towards embracing knowledge in the society. The cave with chained prisoners infers to a group of individuals who a resistant in the society and are not willing to change their situations through the exploration

of knowledge in order to be able to understand different things in the society.