#100 – Scoblete – 1 of 2

Essay Response to Plato’s “The Cave” – 520 words

In the excerpt “The Cave” in Plato’s The Republic: Book VII, Socrates speaks to

Glaucon about philosophy and various issues regarding the allegory of a cave that

contains prisoners. The cave is a place of darkness, which is portrayed as gloomy.

The prisoners cannot move their heads because they are chained and they cannot

see anything but some shadows where the light hits. The prisoners are unable to

look into the light because they will suffer sharp pains if they do. People in the cave

are unable to see the realities of life. They are kept in the dark, without knowledge

of anything except where their fixated head is. Life in the cave can be paralleled to a

close-minded approach. The prisoners are stuck in one spot and are told that what

they are seeing is reality because they know no different. They are blind to the rest

of what is going on with the light above, and they have not been “enlightened”

For someone to leave the cave it means they have broken free of the chains

that hold them in the cave and have moved away from traditional thinking. To leave

the cave is to be enlightened with knowledge. Someone who leaves the cage is able

to see more than what he or she thought existed before. They realize there are a lot

more realities than what they saw and were taught in the cave. Essentially, a

prisoner that leaves the cave is opening their mind to new things, and taking in

knowledge and philosophy that the prisoners still in the cave have never seen

before. They represent the higher level thinkers and the people of the State with the

most wisdom. Plato suggests that criminals are closed minded people, set on the

realities at which they have been taught are true. They refuse to fight and break the
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chains of what they have been taught in order to obtain a higher level of wisdom.

Those who cannot succeed in doing so will be stuck in the population of unknowing

prisoners forever. However, from these prisoners, can arise leaders. Reaching the

light and being enlightened can form leaders. By being enlightened, one knows more

than any of the prisoners and therefore can lead the people and teach them the

wisdoms they have learned. There are some prisoners that break out and reach the

light that do not become leaders. In order to become a leader, the enlightened must

return back to the cave where he or she once started. They must work to break free

more prisoners and show them the way to light, and the true realities. With the help

of a leader, the prisoners will have an easier time breaking free from the cave, but

they must believe in what the leader says.

Overall “The Cave” is an allegory about enlightenment and philosophy.

Finding the light from the cave is a symbol for stepping out of one’s comfort zone in

order to better understand the realities of life.