Allegory Of The Cave Symbolism

“It’s very easy to be judgemental until you know someone’s truth” (Kate Winslet). In Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” the story starts out introducing 4 men that have been chained up in a cave their whole lives, not being able to move and only being able to stare at a wall in front of them. Behind these men is a fire with people walking across it carrying objects and things shaped as animals or creatures. Since the men have never once stepped outside, they believe this to be their reality. One day a single man is released and allowed to turn around and venture outside. After seeing the things that have been behind them and how outside of the cave is the true reality, he starts to see things differently and not just shadows. When he returns to the cave one day to tell his friends, they don’t believe him …show more content…
Since they had never experienced it they believed it was toxic and that the freed man had become crazy. This caused them to worry for their own safety and lash out at the man so he wouldn’t pass on his craziness to them. Finally, Socrates states, “And if they can get hold of this person who takes it in hand to free them from their chains and to lead them up, and if they could kill him, will they not actually kill him” (Sheehan 5)? The prisoners, like anyone else in the world, were afraid of the freed man because he was preaching about something that they had never experienced. He wanted them to go out of the cave with him and see it for themselves, which would frighten anyone. The fear of death and change held them back from experiencing what the true reality of their world was, and caused them to unleash that fear upon the freed