Analysis Of Plato's Allegory Of The Cave

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In the “Allegory of the Cave,” Plato used five different things to represent certain aspects of his writings. First he used prisoners to represent people in modern society because they are chained to the ways of the people before them. They do not think they have the ability to be different, have better lives, or even make their own decisions. They do as they are told and assume what their leaders are telling them is the truth. In a sense the prisoners are like white moderates. They live day in and day out without going against the grain. They do not question their leaders, they do not attempt to change the ways they are living, and they conform to the way their society is. They do not like the way they are treated and yet they do nothing to change their ranking of hierarchy. They just sit around twiddling their thumbs waiting for their captors to determine how they live their lives.
Then he used chains to represent the way society has control over people. Society can cause people to fear change and it holds them in their old ways. People do not want to be considered outcast so they allow society to pull …show more content…

This could relate to Kantian Deontology, because the freed prisoner felt obligated to help the others have better lives just as he did. Kantian Deontology is based on the belief that people have a duty to help others just as they would like to be helped. The escaped prisoner felt that the others had been cheated and not given the ability to choose a life of darkness and confinement or a life with sunlight and the outdoors. He would have wanted to help the others get the life he now had and amount to more than they had before. He felt obligated to help and show them alternatives to life in a cave. Ultimately I feel that returning to the cave symbolized peoples obligation to others. The escaped prisoner felt it was his duty to return to the cave and help the