Allegory Of The Cave Comparison Essay

Great Essays
Comparison and Contrast Essay The beautiful things we physically see are beautiful only because they participate in the more general Form of Beauty. This Form of Beauty in itself is invisible, eternal, and unchanging, unlike things in our physical world that can grow old and lose their beauty . The Forms audited a world of total beauty outside time and space. The Allegory of The Cave, an ancient script, has an ideal point of view on the topic of self-awareness. It explains the life of prisoners who know nothing but the shadows on the wall in front of them. In recent years the Warner Brothers made a movie, The Matrix, which expresses the false perception of life as we know it. These stories have similar themes, but also a great deal of difference due to the time setting. In both stories, the writers also use many comparison techniques to imperforate a well thought out plot. Primarily, Allegory and The Matrix exercise similar symbols. Both characters are conceived by a fake reality that they live in. In both stories the main characters are blinded of what is real and what is purely an illusion. The prisoner has only ever seen the shadows on the wall in front of him, he knows nothing of what is outside the cave he has spent his entire life in. He conceives someone saying to him, that what he saw before was just an illusion (Plato 285). In The Matrix, Neo lives a normal life and does not know that he hasn’t been exposed to the whole truth. The main character in each story

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    The Matrix is a film that challenges the genuine and the module of a complicated, false cyber-based reality. Before the character Thomas Anderson, also known as Neo, finds said realism in the film, Morpheus, the leader of a group of rebels, presents him a very intriguing question, “Have you ever had a dream, Neo, that you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream? How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world?” (Wachowski).…

    • 502 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Allegories are presented as an extended metaphor throughout the story. In both of the stories the allegory is similar, as they both compare the living nature of individuals as having a controlled reality, and they show this by comparing their world to the real world that the audience lives in. In both The Allegory of the Cave and The Truman Show, there is allegories that are presented by the authors to help them get their purpose across. In The Allegory of the Cave, there is the comparison of the cave to the real world, Plato used The Allegory of the cave to make readers understand that people in the real world are represented by the prisoners in his story, and they might also be stuck inside of a controlled area but they do not know. In The…

    • 383 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “The Allegory of a Cave” is a dialogue between Socrates and Plato’s brother Glaucon, which the latter narrates, where Plato crafts a theory regarding the human perception. Plato strongly believed the fact that knowledge that is gained through the senses can be termed as an opinion only. He understood the school of thought that it was only possible to get real knowledge through the assistance of philosophical reasoning. This theory on human perception closely embodies the experience that Frederick Douglass faced in 1800’s America. In “Learning how to Read and Write” Frederick Douglass was able to personify Plato’s philosophical views on how concrete truth can alter one’s reality and propel them toward enlightenment.…

    • 699 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The search for the real world is never fulfilled until it has been experienced by the individual. The modification in the surrounding and the environment one is born into is never easy to change because they are more comfortable in that situation. Similar scenarios have been depicted in Allegory of the cave and The Truman show. Allegory of the cave is a theory of Plato, who is a well-known philosopher in human perception. The theory talks about the disputable idea which many do not understand.…

    • 1295 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Matrix, released in 1999, has various connections to theories of metaphysics such as belief systems and philosophical views. The Allegory of the Cave and Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs will be covered on how they connect to the film. Plato’s story showing the effect of education and the lack of it on our nature and Maslow’s theory of our needs we need as we progress from one need to another until we feel fulfilled. In Plato's story there are people that have never seen daylight before and believe the shadows they see are real but are not until one of them escape and see true reality.…

    • 504 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The main characters are all begin as prisoners, either to society, crime, or just are simply imprisoned by their own realities. Each of them are watching their lives unfold on the wall in front of them, unaware of the powers acting behind them. When it comes to the escape from the chair, there is difference in methods between the texts. In Fight Club and Inception, the prisoners are connected by the idea of changing their realities unconsciously. Cobb goes to the dream world with his wife to build his life, and the Narrator creates his nihilistic alter ego that takes control over him while he…

    • 1668 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Matrix has bad personifications as well. The double-crosser in this story is Cipher. Cipher killed his crewmembers because it was the only way he could get what he wanted-, which was ignorance of the truth- so he helped get the enemy the codes for the Nebuchadnezzar. If a person wants something bad enough there are no limitations to what they will do to get it. The movie shows this…

    • 474 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    A large company. He was genius who choose to join Morpheus, at first neo seems as a reluctant hero and was scared what has been placed before him. He suddenly realize and accept the call from Morpheus and joined him. He Meet with the Goddess “Trinity” who is the bringer of love. She kisses him once he has been killed by Agent Smith which brings him back to life in the real world which energize him in the Matrix.…

    • 318 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Allegory Of The Cave

    • 753 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The Allegory of the Cave is a hypothesis put into perspective by Plato, regarding human awareness. In the short story a group of prisoners have been confined in a cavern ever since birth with no knowledge of the outside world. They are chained facing a wall unable to turn their heads. While a fire behind them gives off a faint light. Sometimes people pass by carrying figures of animals and other objects that cast shadows on the wall.…

    • 753 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Matrix too, being a movie aimed at a popular audience, has a narrative involving a good and evil…

    • 956 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    An allegory is by definition a story that contains a moral, political, or religious meaning both Johnathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach and “The Myth of the Cave” by Plato are both examples of this. In reading of these stories, there exist several similarities and innumerable differences. Flock members ban Johnathan Livingston Seagull for flying too fast and reckless, whereas in the cave a prisoner escapes from darkness into the light. Johnathan Livingston Seagull and “The Myth of the Cave” have a similar set of actions in ascent into enlightenment, functioning in the enlightened state, and the descent to teach the unenlightened a new way.…

    • 706 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Allegory of the Cave” is a philosophical parable or analogy from Plato’s The Republic, written around 380 BC. Exploring themes of knowledge, perception, and the importance of education, it takes the form of a discussion between Plato’s brother, Glaucon, and his teacher and mentor, Socrates. Although this dialogue was almost certainly scripted by Plato, it is not clear whether the idea itself is Plato’s own or his record of Socrates’s thoughts. The allegory begins with Plato’s Socrates describing a group of humans held in a deep, dark cave. They have been imprisoned there since childhood, their necks and legs bound so they cannot turn to see themselves, each other, or the rest of the cave.…

    • 908 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    An allegory can use a situation or event in order to reveal a deeper meaning or lesson. Allegories can act as analogies that point out logical inconsistencies and cause one to reflect and even question their own way of life. In Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave,” Plato intends to point out the prison-like obedience that humans who are “in the cave” have to their lifestyle, and the difficult choice of giving up this lifestyle in search of something more. This allegory displays the confining nature of life without wonder, or philosophy, and the steps – which can be mentally demanding – to take toward enlightenment. Plato writes this allegory during the Classical Age in Greek history.…

    • 1775 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Since the dawn of time, humanity has come to question where does our knowledge stem from, what is the source of our inherit knowledge? How we come to know what we know? Has been argued and discussed in public areas or famous literal works. One of the earliest notable examples of literal works that offered an amenable answer to the millennium old question was written by Plato during the latter-end of his life, as prominent Athenian philosopher, his literally work reflected a time-period where the foundation of societal understanding and knowledge came under questioning. In his literary work The Republic which focuses primarily on politics and the process of governing a state, is a glimpse into what Plato believed to be the stem of knowledge…

    • 1386 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Philosophical Analysis: The Matrix Many people have tried to explain their idea of the nature of reality, many have been successful in bringing new ideas about a new world for readers, viewers, and listeners. The Matrix could be considered a successful case of portraying the nature of reality by creating a visual representation of the concept. Quite a few representations of philosophical ideas may have been portrayed through-out the trilogy, but during the first film the authors focused on reality. Imagine waking up and the world was completely changed overnight.…

    • 855 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays

Related Topics