Allegory of a Cave Review

What is an allegory?

• A literary work used to symbolize and reveal deeper meanings about life

• The use of a protagonist to represent a cave

• The use of similes, metaphors, and personification

• The use of story telling to teach about nature and culture

What is the central idea of the “Allegory of the Cave”?

• Most men live chained to the wall of a cave all of their lives, facing a blank wall, and trying to guess the nature of objects reflected by a fire.

• A philosopher is like a prisoner freed from the cave that comes to understand that the shadows are not reality, rather he understands reality by his experience.

• Men who allow their experience to be shaped by perceptions and shadows do not know a better life.

• A philosopher must return to share the news of enlightenment with others who will not necessarily accept his good news.

SOCRATES: Now if once again, along with those who had remained shackled there, the freed person had to engage in the business of asserting and maintaining opinions about the shadows—while his eyes are still weak and before they have readjusted, an adjustment that would require quite a bit of time—would he not then be exposed to ridicule down there?

What is the meaning of adjustment as it is used in the excerpt?

• Shift

• Alteration

• Adaptation

• Change

Who do the prisoners in “The Allegory of the Cave” represent?

• Ordinary people living in the world not realizing that everything is an illusion.

• Philosophers and those who see the world as an illusion.

• Philosophers who help other seekers to understand ideas of truth, perception, and reality.

• People who want to break free to experience truth and reality but are bound by their own chains.

Which one of these pieces of evidence match Plato's attitude toward reality?

• It is far better to have experienced reality and to understand the world as it is, having sharpened one’s own perceptions to develop truth.

• It is sometimes worth the struggle to understand true perception and reality, but other times one might gain no advantage from understanding the world as it is.

• It causes guilt and pity for those who were left behind, so it is better to be ignorant of the outside world.

• It is neither better nor worse to experience reality, but to truly understand truth and perception one should just accept what is presented as reality.

Who was Socrates speaking to?

Vote for your favorite text we have read so far!

• Monster

• Flowers for Algernon

• Frankenstein

• Prometheus

• Allegory of the Cave

Who is having the discussion in the allegory?

• Glaucoma & Socrates

• Plato & Socrates

• Glaucon & Socrates

• Prisoners and their captors

Being shackled represents...

• Anything that sets one free

• Anything that keeps an individual from learning

• Anything that contributes to knowledge

• Anything that keeps an individual in line

What have the prisoners seen their entire lives?

• Carvings and other artifacts

• Statues

• Shadows of objects

• Plato