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Comparing Allegory Of The Cave And The Truman Show

1003 Words5 Pages

The Allegory of the Cave and The Truman Show explore similar ideas about reality and fiction, how people learn new things, being controlled by others, searching for the truth, and the different ways to understand their meanings. Before we drive in, get into comparing the two. One is a show and the other is a book. We first need an understanding of the two shows side by side. Both The Truman Show and Allegory of the Cave narrate how themes of reality and fiction are explored. As for the Truman Show, there is only one character who is getting controlled and stripped of his freedom, but in The Allegory of the Cave, there is more than one character that is getting controlled. The Truman Show is a film that was released in 1998. It tells the story …show more content…

In Plato's allegory, the prisoners are chained in a cave, only able to see shadows cast by objects behind them. They mistake these shadows for reality until one of them escapes and discovers the outside world, and it’s like The Truman Show as Truman lives in a fabricated world until he gradually becomes enlightened about his surroundings and begins to seek the truth. Another one is the quest for truth and freedom. In Allegory of the Cave and The Truman Show, both the protagonists’ quest for truth and freedom. In Plato’s allegory, the escaped prisoner’s journey represents the philosopher’s quest for knowledge and enlightenment; likewise, Truman’s journey in The Truman Show involves his quest for freedom as he strives to break free from his fake world. The purpose of all this is to get us to understand the explored themes of reality versus illusion and the consequences of living in a controlled world. The Truman Show and Plato’s Allegory of the Cave as their themes are similar, making them both talk explorations of the human …show more content…

The difference between Truman Show and Allegory of the Cave is the rejection of reality as in both some characters come to accept the reality presented to them but the way the characters have different awareness levels. In The Truman Show, Truman slowly becomes aware of the fake world he lives in and the moment he knows enough he takes action and seeks to uncover the truth. The prisoners in the Allegory of the Cave may not initially know the illusion they are in and might need more help in understanding the full truth, but they still reject the idea of waiting there and want to seek freedom just like Truman wanted to as well. This demonstrates how the themes of illusion vs reality can be within our lives. This shows we should question what is real or

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In both of the cases, the author and the director used to method of symbolism to help them get their purpose across to the readers. Many objects in both of the stories were given a meaning and an assumed understanding of what it is symbolising. Shadows is something that is presented in both of the cases, in The Allegory of the Cave there were objects that walked past the fire behind the prisoners, which gave out shadows to the prisoners to see. The shadows represented the truth that was not allowed to be seen by the prisoners but was able to get a small sense of what it is. In The Truman Show, there was a character who played the role of the shadow for Truman.

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Allegory Of The Cave Comparison Essay

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1140 Words | 5 Pages

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In both stories, there are more than one realities, there can even be infinite realities. Both relate to the divided line theory and the theory of forms. The Truman Show and Plato’s Allegory of the Cave both raise many questions relating to the basis of human existence. Reality is much more than just the visible world in both stories. They are both symbols for contrasts between ideas and what humans see as

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First off, one rhetoric that " The Allegory of the Cave" has is a metaphor. A metaphor is comparing two unlike things. The focal thought is, a few detainees were bolted into a give in and the couldn't escape. It speaks to that how much freedom is worth. In the event that you never had an opportunity to see the outside world, you just can envision what it resembles.

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Anthony Arena Professor J. Mileo Philosophy 243 February 1, 2017 The Truman Show and Plato’s Cave Allegory Plato’s Cave Allegory is one of the most, if not the most famous allegories of all time. Despite Plato’s introduction of the Cave Allegory occurring sometime between 380 and 360 B.C., it is still analyzed by modern philosophers who attempt to narrow down and explain some of the broad statements made by Plato. In addition to this research, it has also become clear that many modern films display many of the same messages through metaphors in which someone has developed a misconception regarding reality. The Truman Show is one film, of many, which appears to have adopted a substantial amount of ideas from Plato’s Cave Allegory and adapted

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Over the years, philosophers have used critical thinking to question the very idea of reality. The questions about reality posed by Plato in his Allegory of the cave have been the base of several modern day stories and movies. The Truman Show is heavily based off of Plato’s Allegory of the cave. Truman himself can be related to the prisoner who manages to escape the cave. Truman’s similarities to the prisoner can be seen through their lives lived in a false reality and through the symbols that hold them in reality.

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1373 Words | 6 Pages

However, one prisoner is released and forced out into the reality, allowing the reader to understand that the world one sees and experiences is not the reality, but rather an illusion. Similarly, in The Truman Show by Andrew Niccol, Truman Bank has been growing up in Seahaven Island, a place created just for him to live in for a television show that is all about him. Throughout the film, Truman realizes that Seahaven is not the real world, and viewers see his journey to get out of this illusion, and into reality outside the false world. Both The Allegory of the Cave and The Truman Show prove that the physical world is an illusion that prevents one from discovering reality. The concept of illusion versus reality is evident in both works through similarities in plot, similarities in symbolism, and differences in character.

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1656 Words | 7 Pages

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610 Words | 3 Pages

The Truman show is a movie that’s plot is based off the republic by Plato, written in 360 B.C.E. The Truman show is about a man who’s lived his entire life in a fictional town that is actually a TV show set. He does not know that his life is a TV show but he starts to learn the truth throughout the movie. Although Peter Weir reuses the idea of a cave were stuck in and that the truth is hard to realize from Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave”, the transformation of the truth being much more than what we perceive and getting yourself out of your cave ultimately leads to a deeper truth that is as philosophically compelling. As Plato writes, “Human beings living in a underground den, which has a mouth open towards the light and reaching all along the den; here they have been from their childhood” meaning that literally, people are trapped in a cave. This is directly used the Truman show, as the TV show set is the cave that Truman in chained in.

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1897 Words | 8 Pages

An individual’s life journey is linked to the process of enlightenment, which can be achieved when one realizes the world they have been dwelling in is an illusion and is not under their own control. The science-fiction movie The Matrix, Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave”, and Golden-Globe award winning film The Truman Show all have the same underlying theme of escaping an artificial reality. “The Allegory of the Cave” is a dialogue that criticizes human perception. In the dialogue, prisoners draw a parallel between the dwellers in the cave who believe the shadows on the walls are real to humans who believe in perceptions based on empirical knowledge.

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