This week in class we read the Allegory of the Cave that is written by Plato. The Allegory of the Cave is a conversation between Socrates and Glauton, in the beginning of the story Socrates is describing these places where five prisoners live that are in shackles and they cannot move their heads, so their whole live they just hear a fire in the back of them, and see shadows of men carrying vessels, status, and figures moving back and forth from one side to another. Then one day one of the prisoners is breaks free and climbs out of this cave that they have been exposed to their whole life. As he escapes he feels fresh air and he sees trees and the sun, so as one prisoner becomes free he comes back into the cave, so that he can go back to expose the others to what he has just discovered. However the other prisoners are extremely angered that the other prisoner has taken away what they have known to be true all of their lives with the shadows of men going back and forth carrying vessels, status, and figures and the fire that they heard behind them.
When I first read this piece I thought that it was extremely metaphorically right with the sense that all of our lives we are exposed to one on thing, and when we find out that is not true we get angry because don’t want to believe it. A good example for me is when I found out that Usher got married, all my life I had been exposed to Usher as being a single man that only wrote about finding the right girl, but he never actually would. Then with I found out he was married and all of my theories of Usher never getting married and staying true to his singlehood were gone, just like when one prisoner wanted to show the other prisoners what he had discovered.
Seriously Sydney your example has absolutely nothing to do with the prisoner in the story that we read. The Purpose of life is to find fullfillment why would you want usher to be unhappy all his life. I say unhappy becuase if he is writing about mighting that special one than obviously he is unfullfilled. In the story maybe Socrates was already fullfilled which is why he didnt fill the need to see what the other prisoner had found.
ReplyDeleteI get where you are trying to go with the whole Usher getting married situation but I think that the Allegory of the cave is a little difrent. I think that its more about having something that you thought you knew was true and then having that idea completly taken away. But I guess you could think of usher being single as something you thought was true and then him getting married as something that changed everything. Interesting comparison
ReplyDeleteSydney, i like how you described your opinions throughout your post. It's very descriptive and you give concise examples.
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