Nandana Nithin | Assessment task 1 - Analytical Essay

Plato’s Republic is a book made up of Socratic dialogue that explores the multifaceted nature
of reality created from a spectrum of reality’s true form and its physical reflections of it. The
Platonic theory has influenced literature in society to a significant extent by constantly
challenging the human perception of reality by establishing it as ignorance, stemming from
arrogance due to the power of knowledge. This is explicitly depicted through the application
of Platonic idealism encapsulated in Plato’s Republic incorporated within Christopher
Nolan’s film, Interstellar (2014). This Science fiction is an ingenious appropriation to a great
extent of the dominant ideas (excluding political theory) presented within Plato’s Republic as
the film successfully manipulates Earth, space and time to demonstrate Platonic ideas in a
dystopian society in which Earth becomes inhabitable and an inter-terrestrial search for a new
home transpires. Society acknowledges humanity as the most intelligent species due to their
higher cognitive abilities, complex thinking and introspection; thus creating a social construct
of human intelligence. Platonic theories enable modern forms of literature such as the film,
Interstellar to question human intelligence as a basis for perceiving reality through
problematising human reality by integrating numerous Platonic theories such as Plato’s cave
allegory, the dualistic perspective of the world and The theory of Forms.

Plato’s Cave allegory explained in depth in Book IIV of Plato’s Republic is a concept used to
allude to the limitations of human knowledge in understanding the restriction of viewing
reality only as it’s perceived. This is evident on page 196 of Book IIV in which Plato claims
that the world outside the cave is the ultimate reality perceived upon reaching enlightenment
which is metaphorically represented as the ‘sun’, “in the knowable the last thing to be seen
[…] but once seen, it must be concluded that this is, in fact, the cause of all that is right and
fair in everything—in the visible, it gave birth to light and its sovereign; in the intelligible,
itself sovereign, it provided truth and intelligence”. This Socratic dialogue also emphasises
the higher distinction of the ultimate reality compared to the reality which humans
experience, highlighting humanity’s reality equivalent to the perspective of the chained
prisoners inside the cave as both are ignorant of the greater truth and reality. Modern
literature commonly communicates the increasing arrogance within humans in society
ultimately leading to their downfall; Interstellar captures this through a dystopian setting of a
blight that was threatening human extinction due to the overconsumption of resources. The
characterisation of Tom (son of the protagonist) as the farmer along with the metaphorical
dialogue by the protagonist, Conner, “We used to look up at the sky and wonder at our place
in the stars. Now we just look down, and worry about our place in the dirt.” is foreshadowing
about the ignorance leading to the downfall of humanity as ‘worrying about the dirt’ is what
Tom did which made him still trapped inside the ‘cave’ or the physical world, whereas his
father, Cooper did ‘look up at the sky and wonder’ which constitutes for reaching for the
ultimate reality which is explored through space in Interstellar. In the latter part of the movie,
Tom also refuses to leave his increasingly inhabitable home with his family after Murph is
assured of a better residence that’s not affected by the harsh conditions of the blight. His
stubbornness in not following his father’s footsteps because of his arrogance in sustaining
himself through his farming reiterates his ignorance of understanding the reality of Earth’s
liveability which restricts him from his journey outside the ‘cave’, unlike Murph who has
already broken out of the prison shackles that trapped her to Plato’s ‘cave’ by working at

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 Nandana Nithin | Assessment task 1 - Analytical Essay

NASA. Therefore, in Plato’s cave allegory, the outside of the cave is symbolised by space
and the multi-dimensional representation of human reality’s time and gravity, and the cave
itself is symbolised by humanity on Earth and their ignorance of the world outside the cave
due to the arrogance held over human intelligence.

Plato’s theory of Forms further supports Plato’s Cave Allegory and the dualistic perspective
of the physical reality of humanity and the ultimate reality as it reveals that physical objects
and tangible ideas are only limitations of its ultimate form. This is conveyed in Book X of
Plato’s Republic through the Socratic dialogue, “Therefore, imitation is surely far from the
truth; and, as it seems, it is due to this that it produces everything—because it lays hold of a
certain small part of each thing, and that part is itself only a phantom. This reinforces Platonic
idealism as it portrays that the Forms only exist in the ultimate reality and only reflections of
the Forms are present within the physical world of human reality. In Interstellar, the theory
of Forms is captured through the symbolism of ‘ghost’ in a scene in the first half of the film
where Cooper (the protagonist) is bidding farewell to his daughter, Murph, before leaving for
space in search of an inhabitable plant. The scene exemplars the recurring motif of the ‘ghost’
developing throughout the film - at the beginning of the film, the ‘ghost’ was described as a
gravitational anomaly communicating with Murph in her bedroom, whereas during the
resolution, Murphy arrives at an epiphany when discovering that her childhood ‘ghost’ was
her father. Furthermore, the scene employs dialogue effectively, exemplified in “Once you’re
a parent, you’re the ghost of your children’s future…Murph. Look at me. I can’t be your
ghost right now. I need to exist.” The dialogue is symbolic as it amalgamates foreshadowing
in the latter part of the film to represent the unconditional Love between the father and
daughter after they break through a barrier of reality’s reflection of Love, straying away from
the ignorance caused by the reflections of the Forms. The metaphor of ‘ghost of your
children’s future’ also illustrates the foreshadowing of Cooper in another time and space
dimension being Murph’s ‘ghost’ that helps her save humanity, hence securing her future too.
Overall, the incorporation of the developing motif of ‘ghost’ as a metaphor purposed to
symbolise and foreshadow Cooper’s and Murph’s epiphanies in the resolution as they
understood Love as a Platonic Form on a higher level due to their experiences of it
transcending time and space. This contracted vastly from the imitation of Love in the scene
itself which was imitated through Cooper’s physical presence as a father to stand over Murph
like a ‘ghost’ or rather a shadow, evoking feelings of longing and grief due to separation from
the other. The aforementioned ideas link back to the Cave Allegory and relate to Plato’s
dualistic perspective of reality which outlines that the ultimate reality is the multidimensional
tesseract of time created for Cooper to communicate due to the macro-level existence of Love
and that the humans’ view of reality is Murph’s bedroom that confines love as a reflection of
its real form. Love as a Platonic Form also links to another scene in which Brand reveals her
thoughts about love to Cooper through the dialogue, “But maybe it means something more,
something we can’t yet understand. Maybe it’s some evidence, some artifact of a higher
dimension that we can’t consciously perceive.”, in which Nolan has consciously employed
Platonism in describing love as a Form to educate the audience that humans can’t quite
comprehend certain ideas due to its existence on a higher level as a Form, hence why
Interstellar is only an appropriation of the Republic to an extent. Therefore, the imitations of

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Plato’s Forms such as Love interpreted as the longing due to separation present in humans’
view of reality serve as a sign of ignorance within humanity due to their inability to fathom
Love in its purest, which originated from their arrogance in professing the comprehension of
the complex Forms as feelings existing within the physical or human world.

Plato’s dualistic perspective of reality involves the physical world which is the metaphorical
‘cave’ in Plato’s Cave Allegory and the human perception of reality in which the Forms don’t
exist, and the ultimate reality (the outside of the metaphorical ‘cave’) in which the forms do
exist. This idea that Plato expressed clearly in the Republic is represented in Interstellar
through the relationship between Earth (humans’ reality) and extraterrestrial multidimensions
and space (ultimate reality). One of Plato’s most famous quotes from the Republic is, “Either
we shall find what it is we are seeking or at least we shall free ourselves from the persuasion
that we know what we do not know.” This quote immaculately summarises Plato’s dualistic
perspective in terms of achieving the ultimate reality which is gained from detaching oneself
from ignorance and accepting the unknowing, thus leading to lesser ignorance of the ultimate
reality and its Forms. Correspondingly, Interstellar has incorporated the dualistic perspective
through ‘they’ or the ‘ghost’ as Murph calls them powerful forces that communicate with
humans by sending gravitational anomalies to alert them about human extinction. This is
broadened in the scene in which Cooper is inside the multidimensional tesseract of time
inside a black hole created by ‘them’ in space. The use of montage to outline the
multidimensional representation of time created by ‘them’ reinforced the infinitely complex
world ‘they’ live in which has unlimited access to space and time without restrictions, unlike
the case for inhabitants of Earth. In contrast to the advanced ‘they’, the humans part of the
physical world is not only limited to resources according to Plato but is endangered due to the
lack of physical resources in Interstellar. Moreover, humans on Earth are also unable to view
time in its multidimensional form unlike ‘they’. The ‘they’ symbolise the ultimate reality
outside the metaphorical ‘cave’ as Cooper discovers in the scene which places him on the
journey to this reality as he would be climbing out of the metaphorical ‘cave’ according to
Plato’s allegory. Cooper’s dialogue to his robot, TARS in this scene, “I thought they chose
me. But they didn’t choose me, they chose her! [...] To save the world”, utilises epistrophe in
‘choose’ to further prove that ‘they’ are the humans of Earth from another time and space
dimension helping Cooper to save themselves after which they evolved into a superior
species having achieved Platonic realism. This conveys to the audience the limitless
possibilities in knowledge and highlights their ignorance as a person residing in the physical
world. Therefore, the implementation of Plato’s dualistic perspective of reality in Plato
portrays the possibility of human advancement from ignorance to achieving enlightenment
through understanding the Forms, similar to how Cooper understood Time in Interstellar.

In conclusion, Plato’s Republic has influenced many modern pieces of literature such as
Nolan’s Interstellar through the prominent Platonic theories that problematise the way
humans experience reality such as Plato’s Cave Allegory, the Theory of Forms and the
dualistic perspective of reality. These influences of Platonism have established human
arrogance over knowing creating ignorance in human societies and limiting mobility in the
Platonic path to enlightenment, also known as the Forms, also known as the ultimate reality

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represented by the outside of the metaphorical ‘cave’. Thus, Platonism has impacted literature
to ground mankind by raising awareness of their ignorance and questioning the confidence in
the knowledge they possess.

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