Plato's Cave Susan Sontag Summary

Throughout her article “In Plato’s Cave,” Susan Sontag makes several claims regarding photography. Sontag guides her reader through the many benefits, flaws, and uses of photography. She even compares photography to the words of ancient philosopher in Plato’s infamous, “The Allegory of the Cave.” Throughout her writings, Sontag made it evident that photography is much more than visual stimuli produced for human pleasure; it is a way of interpreting the world, and can be used as a tool for one’s benefit. Sontag’s claims can be used to demonstrate how these means for photography can be utilized by the media. One claim that Sontag proposes is that photographs can be a source of evidence. In her article she states, “A photograph passes for incontrovertible proof that a given thing happened.” This quote suggests that a photograph a solid piece of evidence, documenting a given event or memory. This is true in the case discussed in Charles Hagen’s “The Power of a Video Image Depends on the Caption.” This article focuses on the Rodney King case, in which a videotape was used as evidence to show King being beaten by police officers. The videotape was able to show the courtroom

In “The Allegory of the Cave,” Plato says, to the prisoners, “Truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images.” This quote shows that the prisoners are gaining a false reality through the shadows. According to Sontag, this is comparable to the use of photography in today’s world. “In teaching us a new visual code, photographs alter and enlarge our notions of what is worth looking at and what we have a right to observe.” This quote shows that Sontag believes that the use of photography, both in the media and in personal use, is a form of gatekeeping, much like how the people casting the shadows in Plato’s “The Allegory of the Cave” control what the prisoners