The Truman Show
The Truman Show
The Truman Show, staring Jim Carrey, is a movie about Truman, an insurance salesman who is seemingly happy with his life, until he starts to question the world around him. After further investigation, he finds his life is a television show, being broadcasted to the whole world. This movie is an allegory, that means any viewer can watch this movie and understand it on two different levels, literally or metaphorically. It has striking similarities to Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. Plato’s Allegory of the Cave shows how when people are ignorant, they are prisoners chained in a cave, that cave is their home. There is a fire behind the prisoners that projects distorted images of people and objects. Prisoners know of nothing other than the cave, so those shadows are all that is real to them. If a prisoner is released to the outside world, they are at first blinded; but after they adjust, it is a new and awe inspiring world. This allegory applies to The Truman Show. The prisoner is Truman, he is trapped in the cave that is Seahaven (his home, the television setting). His chains are his fear of water, where his dad died. The fire that creates the shadows is Christof, the show’s director. He controls every aspect of Truman’s life, he makes Truman believe what is presented to him, distorted shadows. After questioning, he is enlightened. At the end of the movie, he takes his first steps in the
The Truman Show, staring Jim Carrey, is a movie about Truman, an insurance salesman who is seemingly happy with his life, until he starts to question the world around him. After further investigation, he finds his life is a television show, being broadcasted to the whole world. This movie is an allegory, that means any viewer can watch this movie and understand it on two different levels, literally or metaphorically. It has striking similarities to Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. Plato’s Allegory of the Cave shows how when people are ignorant, they are prisoners chained in a cave, that cave is their home. There is a fire behind the prisoners that projects distorted images of people and objects. Prisoners know of nothing other than the cave, so those shadows are all that is real to them. If a prisoner is released to the outside world, they are at first blinded; but after they adjust, it is a new and awe inspiring world. This allegory applies to The Truman Show. The prisoner is Truman, he is trapped in the cave that is Seahaven (his home, the television setting). His chains are his fear of water, where his dad died. The fire that creates the shadows is Christof, the show’s director. He controls every aspect of Truman’s life, he makes Truman believe what is presented to him, distorted shadows. After questioning, he is enlightened. At the end of the movie, he takes his first steps in the