Allegory of the Cave

The "Allegory of the Cave" by Plato represents an extended metaphor that is to contrast the way in which we perceive and believe in what is reality. The thesis behind his allegory is the basic tenets that all we perceive are imperfect "reflections" of the ultimate Forms, which subsequently represent truth and reality. The purpose of this allegory defines clearly the process of enlightenment. For a man to be enlightened, he must above all desire the freedom to explore and express himself. Plato's main concept of the cave is: people see reality as the visible world when reality really is more than the visible world.

The cave represents the people who believe that knowledge comes from what we see and hear in the world.The prisoners represent an ignorant, unenlightened, and narrow society. This would comprise of those who have not yet understood the meaning of life.The prisoners are without sun, without a higher understanding, and have limited understanding.Those who are chained represent all human beings who have been forced to think in one particular way; The chains are symbolic of limitations that pull us away from the truth. These chains permit the prisoners only to see shadows replicated by a fire behind them. These chained prisoners are restricted to only what the fire allows them to see – their own perceptions. Because the prisoners cannot see what or who is behind them, they accept those shadows as reality.Their full understanding arises only when the shackles are unbound and can comprehend clearly. The cave shadows are ambiguous and unclear, distorted, without any true form. Plato successfully utilizes the shadows to demonstrate those who cannot see an accurate, clear reality. The prisoners are seeing the shadows as a reality of the visible world, yet their reality are flawed and not the true form. The shadows symbolize what we observe with our senses, and not with our mental understandings – they may well be misrepresentations but we are incapable of