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The Truman Show: Plato's Allegory Of The Cave

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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. When Truman starts to see the truth, he starts to believe he's crazy. He thinks that he's imagining everything, because it's hard to accept the truth. Plato writes, “if he is compelled to look straight at the light, will he not have pain in his eyes which will make him turn away to take and take in the objects of visions which he …show more content…

For instance, Truman chooses not to go back to his old life. In the Truman show “Good morning, and in case I don't see you, good afternoon, good evening, and good night”, the quote is said at the end of the Truman to signify that Truman had moved on and had figuratively left the cave. Unlike in allegory of the cave, Truman isn't necessarily forced out of the cave like how Plato writes, “At first, when any of them is liberated and compelled suddenly to stand up and turn his neck round and walk and look towards the light”, rather he finds his own way out. And that is a better way to learn the

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