Plato's Allegory of the Cave

Today in class we talked about Plato's allegory of the Cave. We learned about the three parts of the allegory: setting the scene, the three stages of liberation, and the prisoner returns to the cave. In the first section, setting the scene, it explained that there were prisoners in a cave that had been in there since childbirth so they know no different. The prisoners are shackled up and cannot move. They are forced to stare at one wall and there are people that hold up objects which create shadows that the prisoners are forced to look at.In the second part, the three stages of liberation, one prisoner was released out of the cave and into the real world. At first it was painful for the prisoner to look at the light and they had to get accustomed to it. Then they were able to look at the sun itself and know that it had a lot of power and was in charge of the seasons and governs everything in sunlight. The prisoner also learns by what it was taught through the shadows. The last part is the prisoner returns to the cave. In this part the prisoner goes back to the cave and his eyes are in darkness. He then tries to tell the other prisoners about what he learned in the real world and is exposed to ridicule. Then in the end the prisoners end up killing the released prisoner. This allegory has a lot of symbolism and many hidden messages which I found very interesting.

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