Plato’s Cave

Student’s Full Name
Professor’s Full Name
Subject
Date
Symbols in Plato’s Allegory of the Cave
In this essay, we shall comment on the symbols, and the symbology found in Plato’s Republic VII. In order to write this essay, we shall first offer a brief summary of the allegory, to gain a thorough understanding of the
INTRODUCTION
Summary of the Allegory. In Plato’s allegory, he depicts the image of a cave where prisoners have been imprisoned since their childhood and forced to gaze at a wall in front of them. Behind them, there is a fire; between the fire, and the prisoners, a raised walkway with a low walk showed the shadows of the objects people carry, in a puppet-like fashion (Plato, VII). Also, as they cannot see the people holding the objects, they believed that the voices they heard came from the objects, instead of coming from the people. When a prisoner is released and forced to look the fire, and the statues he gets confused and realizes that those things he saw were not as real as those he was seeing outside the cave. He understood that it was the fire what was projecting shadows, and giving him, a copy of the real images.DISCUSSION
Symbols in Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. In this part of the essay, we shall show the different symbols in the work, along with its interpretation.
1. Chains. Chains representeikasia, or ignorance, and the other prisoners who are in chains, represent the human ignorance, and the unwillingness to believe in the evidenc…