In “Allegory of The Cave,” philosopher Plato explains to his student, Glaucon, that there are prisoners in a den tied up and have never been able to turn their bodies nor their heads to see what is behind them: a blazing fire. The prisoners can only see a wall and the shadows casted from the objects that pass along front of the fire (583). The shadows are the only truth the prisoners know since they have never been exposed to anything outside the cave. Plato further explains saying “To them... the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images” (584). When a prisoner is finally liberated and he looks into the light, he is not able to see the reality as clear because the excess of light hurts their eyes, so he is compelled to
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His motivation for learning was an inmate named Bimbi, who made Malcolm feel envy of his stock of knowledge because with it he had the ability to take charge of any conversation he was in. Malcolm X’s lack of education (further than the eighth grade) made it difficult for him to acquire more knowledge since he was unable to read. “… every book I picked up had a few sentences which didn’t contain… the words that might was well been Chinese” (241). Similar to Grandin, Malcom X had attempted to leave out words he did not understand. However, without those words, the sentences and books he read were senseless. Malcolm X decided to take charge of the situation by learning more words. He did so by copying a dictionary verbatim page by page until he had copied the entire dictionary. Malcolm X explains: “… as my word-base broadened… [I] now begin to understand what the book was saying” (242). Malcolm X’s word knowledge allowed him to understand more words; thus, he was able to comprehend entire books and their
His motivation for learning was an inmate named Bimbi, who made Malcolm feel envy of his stock of knowledge because with it he had the ability to take charge of any conversation he was in. Malcolm X’s lack of education (further than the eighth grade) made it difficult for him to acquire more knowledge since he was unable to read. “… every book I picked up had a few sentences which didn’t contain… the words that might was well been Chinese” (241). Similar to Grandin, Malcom X had attempted to leave out words he did not understand. However, without those words, the sentences and books he read were senseless. Malcolm X decided to take charge of the situation by learning more words. He did so by copying a dictionary verbatim page by page until he had copied the entire dictionary. Malcolm X explains: “… as my word-base broadened… [I] now begin to understand what the book was saying” (242). Malcolm X’s word knowledge allowed him to understand more words; thus, he was able to comprehend entire books and their