Transcript The Allegory of the Cave - Sacred Heart High School

The Allegory of the Cave
Plato
Allegory
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allegory (AL-eh-GOR-ee): a narrative that serves as an extended
metaphor. Allegories are written in the form of fables, parables, poems,
stories, and almost any other style or genre. The main purpose of an
allegory is to tell a story that has characters, a setting, as well as other
types of symbols, that have both literal and figurative meanings. The
difference between an allegory and a symbol is that an allegory is a
complete narrative that conveys abstract ideas to get a point across,
while a symbol is a representation of an idea or concept that can have a
different meaning throughout a literary work (A Handbook to Literature).
One well-known example of an allegory is Dante’s The Divine Comedy.
In Inferno, Dante is on a pilgrimage to try to understand his own life, but
his character also represents every man who is in search of his purpose
in the world (Merriam Webster Encyclopedia of Literature). Although
Virgil literally guides Dante on his journey through the mystical inferno,
he can also be seen as the reason and human wisdom that Dante has
been looking for in his life. See A Handbook to Literature, Merriam
Webster’s Encyclopedia of Literature.
Reflection
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Select a passage from the text that made you stop and think
more deeply about the topic.
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These sentence starters might help you (as will any of the ones
listed in your notebook)
 The author is trying to make me (see, feel, know, do…)
 The idea I find most provocative (causing a reaction) is
 This is relevant to my life because…
 So, the big idea is…
Sparknotes Summary of “Allegory of the Cave”
Socrates presents the most beautiful and famous metaphor in Western philosophy: the
allegory of the cave. This metaphor is meant to illustrate the effects of education on
the human soul. Education moves the philosopher through the stages on the divided
line, and ultimately brings him to the Form of the Good.
Socrates describes a dark scene. A group of people have lived in a deep cave since birth,
never seeing the light of day. These people are bound so that they cannot look to
either side or behind them, but only straight ahead. Behind them is a fire, and behind
the fire is a partial wall. On top of the wall are various statues, which are manipulated
by another group of people, lying out of sight behind the partial wall. Because of the
fire, the statues cast shadows across the wall that the prisoners are facing. The
prisoners watch the stories that these shadows play out, and because these shadows
are all they ever get to see, they believe them to be the most real things in the world.
When they talk to one another about “men,” “women,” “trees,” or “horses,” they are
referring to these shadows. These prisoners represent the lowest stage on the line—
imagination.
A prisoner is freed from his bonds, and is forced to look at the fire and at the statues
themselves. After an initial period of pain and confusion because of direct exposure of
his eyes to the light of the fire, the prisoner realizes that what he sees now are things
more real than the shadows he has always taken to be reality. He grasps how the fire
and the statues together cause the shadows, which are copies of these more real
things. He accepts the statues and fire as the most real things in the world. This
stage in the cave represents belief. He has made contact with real things—the
statues—but he is not aware that there are things of greater reality—a world beyond
his cave.
Next, this prisoner is dragged out of the cave into the world above. At first,
he is so dazzled by the light up there that he can only look at shadows,
then at reflections, then finally at the real objects—real trees, flowers,
houses and so on. He sees that these are even more real than the
statues were, and that those were only copies of these. He has now
reached the cognitive stage of thought. He has caught his first glimpse
of the most real things, the Forms.
When the prisoner’s eyes have fully adjusted to the brightness, he lifts his
sight toward the heavens and looks at the sun. He understands that the
sun is the cause of everything he sees around him—the light, his
capacity for sight, the existence of flowers, trees, and other objects. The
sun represents the Form of the Good, and the former prisoner has
reached the stage of understanding.
The goal of education is to drag every man as far out of the cave as
possible. Education should not aim at putting knowledge into the soul,
but at turning the soul toward right desires. Continuing the analogy
between mind and sight, Socrates explains that the vision of a clever,
wicked man might be just as sharp as that of a philosopher. The
problem lies in what he turns his sharp vision toward.
Film Summary Example
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69F7GhAS
OdM&safe=active
The Allegory
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What are the four stages of education?
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Imagination
Belief
Thought
Understanding
What do you think of this philosophy? Remember Plato
said you couldn’t “put” knowledge into the soul, you could
only lead it toward knowledge and the soul has to do the
hard work.
What kind of person are you? In the cave? Out of the
cave? Wanting to go back into the cave?
What is the problem with living life in the cave?
Post Reading Questions
1.
2.
3.
What is an allegory, and what is the purpose of this one?
What comparisons can you make between the journey
of the released prisoner and your own experience of
learning?
In this story, where/what is “reality?”
Film Comparison
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The Matrix and Truman Show
How are these like “The Allegory of the
Cave”?
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Use some of these words in your response:
 Education
 Knowledge
 Understanding
 ignorance (comes from the word ignore)
sources
Summary: Sparknotes
 Allegory definition: A Handbook to Literature,
Merriam Webster’s Encyclopedia of Literature.
 Post reading questions:
www.culinarychronicles.net/classes/Intro_to_philosoph
y/.../cave.pdf
 Text of “ The Allegory of the Cave”
http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/allegory.html
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