Plato's Allegory Of The Cave And Watchmen Analysis

The Mask Behind the Man: A Comparison Between Plato’s Allegory of the Cave and Watchmen During the times of Ancient Greece, Plato used his title as a philosopher in order to rationalize things that had previously been explainable only with the use of mythical deities. On of his better-known teachings was called the Allegory of the Cave, in which he described the phenomenon of people understanding the world in different ways. More than two thousand years later, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons created the world-renowned graphic novel Watchmen. Within the story of Watchmen, multiple characters experience what Plato philosophized in the Allegory of the Cave. In order to understand how Plato’s allegory is used in context of Watchmen, one must first learn how Plato intended his philosophy to be interpreted. Plato’s Allegory of the Cave is a fictional narrative that revolves around the life of a prisoner in an unusual circumstance. This prisoner along with others have been locked underground since childhood. All of their legs

In the first page of the first chapter of this novel, Rorschach exclaimed “all the whores and politicians will look up and shout ‘save us!’…and I’ll look down and answer ‘no’” (Moore 1.1). This quote set up Rorschach’s view on the cave as he thinks that he has been able to escape it. As the novel progressed, Rorschach’s character showed that he had no pity left for the unfortunate “prisoners” who were still in the cave. Plato’s allegory was an open-ended question that could be answered in multiple ways and Moore and Gibbons answered in an incredibly unique way through Rorschach. He believed that he was above the others because he saw the true filth in humanity and was frustrated with his colleagues who were still in trapped in the cave and could not see the world the same as Rorschach could see