Allegory of the Cave

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Allegory of the Cave
Plato’s theory of forms is that we live in a lesser and imperfect world and that whatever we perceive is not true because of distortions. According to Plato, true forms only exist in the perfect universe. Plato’s allegory is a picture of chained prisoners forced to look at a wall where shadows of real objects fall in a cave. The prisoners grow believing the shadows to be true objects. When one of the prisoners is cut free and allowed to see the outside world, he is shocked to realize he has been observing parts of reality. When the prisoner returns to the cave and reports all the beautiful things he had seen, the other prisoners kill him misbelieving that the prisoner had ill motives to corrupt them.
In The Giver, Utopia is a futuristic society where rules are set and followed so as to keep things in order. This society has eliminated all pain, hatred and prejudice; this is so to ensure that past mistakes are not repeated (Plato 9). A Utopian society implies a perfect world where people strive for sameness. Jonas is selected to be the new receiver of memories.
To compare the allegory of the cave and the Giver, the giver would be the intellect who has seen the light while the rest of society is still in the dark. The intellect thus makes decisions on behalf of the community, and he cannot share his wisdom until the receiver is chosen. The freed prisoner who realizes new reality represents the receiver in this case (Plato…