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Ignorance In Plato's Allegory Of The Cave

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Most people have been told that “Ignorance is bliss” but has anyone ever questioned if it actually is? It is not, ignorance is never as blissful as it seems. Ignorance can be compared to being trapped in a prison of someone’s own mind where no man is ever truly free; he will always be imprisoned either by ignorance or by education. Authors such as Plato, Fredric Douglass, and Sherry Turkle all have faced bouts of ignorance, but have overcome them through the want and drive to learn.
Throughout Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” there is an internal struggle within the protagonist to escape from the only place he once knew as home just to find out that is like out of the cave. Within the cave it is extremely censored on what the people/prisoners are able to see and the only way they are shown anything is through shadow images that are projected upon the cave walls. They are shown manipulated images of birds, people, and other objects which in turn scares them into staying within the cave. The protagonist was determined to escape the cave to discover what was the real reality and truth outside of the cave. He was able to escape and see the light of the sun and was able to see what is really true. Plato states “He would first see the sun and the reason about him.”(212) which means once he …show more content…

He writes about it in his article “Learning how to Read and Write” where he goes on discussing working as a slave but being taught by his mistress. He goes to say that she wanted to teach him how to read to help him one day push him towards being free. Douglass’s mistress in return of seeing him start to catch on and succeed with his teachings became resentful and regretful after teaching him. She sought out to make Douglass miserable because he was doing so well and she was afraid that he would one day leave her. This to a degree could be compared to the education system today by the way it conducts

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