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Comparing Allegory Of The Cave And The Truman Show

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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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The allegory of the cave contains a very poignant message about learning and new experiences but it’s not real. It’s written as Socrates telling a story in order to illustrate his point. The first man is forcibly removed from the cave and shown the light, creating a painful experience. Douglass’ story is autobiographical and it shows a true need for knowledge in order to be free from the bondage of slavery.

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The movie The Matrix has many similar themes and differences to “The Allegory of the Cave”. The Matrix is about a man named Neo, he believes that he’s a normal man with a normal life but then he is contacted by a man named Morpheus. Morpheus exposes Neo to the truth that his world, where he is just regular Tom Anderson is made up. The Matrix , was created by sentient machines that subdue the human population, while their bodies ' heat and electrical activity are used as an energy source. Neo is reluctant to accept this truth that his old world, the matrix it is called, does not really exist.

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What you see can be altered by what you know. Authors fabricate and establish selective truths in their pieces,such as novels, films and poems this is shown by the director, Peter Weir,with The Truman Show, Author Ayn Rand’s Anthem and Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. They conveyed this through the use of figurative language such as irony, symbolism and metaphors. Together they bring the larger idea that oppression creates a new truth, which means there isn’t one truth but multiple, therefore the truth does not exist. To begin, oppression creates truth.

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The characters and the theme of Fahrenheit 451 have many distinct characteristics that allow for it to be compared to The Truman Show. Fahrenheit 451 and The Truman Show both present the theme that people generally accept the reality they are given. Characters in the film and novel portray this theme by setting artificial reality against actual reality. What is shown as reality to the people in the film and in the novel is not what the actual world is. The reality presented is that knowledge is power and in both Fahrenheit 451 and The Truman Show there are people without knowledge and people with knowledge.

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Allegory of the Cave, a short story by renowned philosopher Plato, describes the life of prisoners chained inside of a cave where all the knowledge they receive is given by unknown strangers behind them. It continues to elaborate on their transition from a lackluster world where they were truly in the dark to one that completely surpasses all expectations. Likewise, Stranger Than Fiction, a movie written by Zach Helm, illustrates an IRS auditor, Harold Crick, that is shackled by his mundane lifestyle and also has an embodied voice that seems to be controlling his life. The movie goes on to describe his arduous journey toward finding the woman behind the voice, which ultimately gives him a new perspective on life. Zach Helm’s screenplay Stranger Than Fiction and Plato’s Allegory of the Cave both describe the experience of a person escaping limited perspective darkness and discovering a more complex world than they had previously thought existed.

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Plato tells us that the prisoners are confused on their emergence from the cave and that the prisoners’ will be blinded once they had been freed from the cave. After a period of time they will adjust their eyesight and begin to understand the true reality that the world poses. The stubbornness to develop a different perspective is seen in much of today’s society. The allegory of the cave is an understanding of what the true world is and how many people never see it because of their views of the society they are raised in.

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Comparative Analysis: The Truman Show and Plato’s Allegory A comparative analysis, according to Reference, is defined as: “a study that compares and contrasts two things. The study can be done to find the crucial differences between two very similar things or the similarities between two things that appear to be different on the surface”. The Truman Show and Plato’s Allegory share multiple similarities, despite being written during different time periods. Although the storylines differ, there are several points throughout these pieces of work that can be compared.

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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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Filmmakers continue to create major films displaying Plato’s Cave Allegory in part and through their own representations. While many films don’t display the full allegory, they always tell of someone escaping their false reality in some form and finding a new life of some kind. The Truman Show is a perfect example of this concept, as Truman is a slave who is trying to escape his false reality that has been manipulated by his captors. Works Cited "The 10 Best Movies Referring to Plato’s Allegory of the Cave.

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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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This essay is on The Allegory of the Cave, Book VII of The Republic by Plato. This paper is written to explain what the allegory, defined by the Oxford Dictionary as “a story, poem, or picture that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one, or a story with two levels of meaning” is as construed by Plato. This paper will 1) Present that the allegory presented in this story is a number of Plato 's key philosophical postulations 2) The strategy he used to explain his philosophical views in The Allegory of the Cave. 3) How do his views affect and or apply to reality, education and media in our society today.

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William shakespeare is an English poet and actor. He was born April 1564. He married Anne Hathaway and had 3 children with her Susanna, Hemet and Judith. He began his career as an actor in 1592. He chose to write plays because he was good in writing and acting.

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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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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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