Analysis Of Allegory Of The Cave

The Allegory of the Cave by Plato was written somewhere between 380 and 360B.C. in part VII of his work The Republic. It begins with the main character Socrates talking of a hypothetical cave in which prisoners are kept in bonds to see what are essentially shadow puppets upon the wall they are forced to stare at, believing them to be the reality of the outside world as they have no other frame of reference. Socrates goes on to say that if the prisoners were to be freed from their bonds they would most likely wander about the cave as they would have no knowledge of what else to do. Once they discovered the mouth of the cave, however, they would be temporarily dazzled, perhaps even blinded, by their first encounter with sunlight and may …show more content…
Sylvia states early on that she’d “much rather go to the pool or to the show where it 's cool” than go downtown with Miss Moore—a retired teacher hoping to enlighten the neighborhood children— as she is not fond of the idea of traveling to a new, unknown place but is forced into a taxi to visit Fifth Avenue anyway. Upon seeing the toy store Sylvia acts very much like Plato’s prisoners stepping into the sunlight for the first time: Plato’s tale describes the prisoners as being intimidated of the view before them, as their whole lives they were subjected to dancing shadows on the cave walls and understood them to be reality. “Will he not fancy that the shadows which he formerly saw are truer than the objects which are now shown to him?” asks Socrates, Plato’s narrator in The Cave—meanwhile, the children outside the store window spot a toy sailboat that costs over a thousand dollars and it leaves Sylvia flabbergasted. "Who 'd pay all that when you can buy a sailboat set for a quarter at Pop 's, a tube of glue for a dime, and a ball of string for eight cents?” Sylvia asks the group, saying her toy sailboat cost less than a …show more content…
Sylvia gingerly tip-toes around the store, unused to the surroundings and unsure of how to act: she and her cousin Sugar become stiff, staring at the price tag of the toy sailboat instead of fooling around as they would normally. When Sylvia poses Miss Moore a question (“Whatcha bring us here for, Miss Moore?”) Sylvia is not given an answer and but is instead asked if she is angry. Sylvia doesn’t want to grace her with a response and instead walks around feigning disinterest, like a sulky child would, as well as a prisoner might when faced with a view he doesn’t fully