Plato's Allegory of the Cave is a tale of truth and reality versus ignorance. It is an analyzation of human perception and can be applied to modern life. Allegory of the Cave also presents the difference of being closed minded versus being open minded. It shows the advantages gained to those who are open minded. It also presents the disadvantages and how ignorant one sounds when one is closed minded.

Plato's Allegory of the Cave takes place in a dark cave. There are prisoners in shackles with something in place to keep their heads from turning. They are basically forced to only look in one direction. Behind the prisoners there is a fire and a runway where showmen can place items such as vases. The fire casts shadows on the walls the prisoners are facing and they play a game. They begin to guess what the shadows are and those who get the most right are considered to be the smartest people of the group.

These prisoners know nothing but what is casted in front of them. To these prisoners, they are not shadows of objects but real objects themselves as they have no reality. Out of the group, one prisoner is freed and allowed to venture. He begins to look at the fire, the statues, and treys to comprehend everything. After direct sunlight to his eyes he is pained and confused. In that moment, being released might have seemed like the worst thing possible to that prisoner. Being utterly confused is frustrating and the pain of turning his head and staring at direct sunlight is a lot to handle. The prisoner makes the connection of the fire and the objects cast a shadow and that the shadow is not reality. The escaped prisoner begins to accept that the shadow is not reality but an image of it and the object and fire are reality.

Again, this is a smaller version of reality. The prisoner does not know reality outside of the cave. He is dragged out of the cave and it takes time for him to adjust. He looks at the trees around and beings to understand that this is an even bigger reality than inside the cave. The statues in the cave are just mimicking what is truly real. The grass, flowers and trees are true reality while the objects and shadows just capture these beauties and deceive one to believe they are reality. Going back to the cave and seeing the shadows brings no more enjoyment to the freed prisoners as he has experienced true life and reality. His former prisoners will call him mad and deranged after explaining everything to them when in reality they are deranged.

There are many symbols that can be taken from Allegory of the Cave and applied to real, modern day life. The cave and the prisoners inside it represent the people who take everything to the literal meaning. They believe everything they are told without question. They play into what other people feed them and become trapped inside a cave of misunderstanding. The shadows basically represent the perceived truth and false reality of the prisoners. They symbolize the information that is being fed to the prisoners. The guessing game that the prisoners are playing to see who is the smartest represents the ignorance of the world. It shows how one who is believed to be the smartest is actually the person who is most fooled. The escape of the prisoner represents the search of true knowledge and true reality while the prisoners return represents how scared others can be of what is the truth and would rather live in a world of their false reality because it is all they know.

The prisoner who escaped represents one who is open mindedness while the prisoners stuck in the cave represent close mindedness. The prisoner who removed the items from keeping his head from turning is freeing himself of his previous ways of thinking and is ready or open to face a new reality. He accepts that his previous reality was false and was ready to accept his new reality instead of being stubborn and close minded. The prisoner who escaped allowed himself to become more free. He was open towards new ways of thinking and due to that fact, he learned not only about the world, but about the truth. The prisoners who stayed closed minded and unwilling to see what else is out there in the world missed out on the opportunity to learn. They remained in their false identity and never become enlighten with the beauty that is the real truth. In this aspect, Allegory of the Cave shows that being open minded will allow you to learn things that you never would have imagined learning before. Being open minded can show the real truth but being closed minded, you will become ignorant of your false truth and never learn the real truth.

Allegory of the Cave also represents the modern day education system. We are the prisoners, and the education system is the cave. Just like the prisoners were being fed images and shadows, as students, we are being fed massive loads of information daily. Tests and papers represent the guessing game where we are tested on this knowledge being fed to us, and the person who gets the most right is considered the smartest out of the group. But how much does this information really matter? Students are told to believe that everything taught is the real truth, no questions asked. Although challenging the professor can happen, it rarely does out of fear. Once we venture out of our comfort zone and into the real world of knowledge, like the prisoner escapes the cave, students are scrutinized and basically told that the education we are given is what is true and to only pay attention to that.

Although reality for the prisoners in the cave was false compared to the prisoner who escaped, everyone has their own reality. No ones reality is wrong, everyone is just at a different point in their lives. A child in Beverly Hills who has a five star breakfast made for them every morning by a chef has a different reality than a starving child in Libya who has to search for scraps for breakfast. Both of these children have different realities but that does not mean that any of their realities are wrong. This is sort of a fault in Allegory of the Cave because it states how the reality of the prisoners in the cave is false and only the reality of the escaped prisoner is true reality which in a way is not right. People in all different parts of the world have different situations and reality but no ones reality is more true than another persons reality. Reality is, in a way, perception.

Plato's Allegory of the Cave also relates to the modern day life showing how close minded people can be. We tend to believe that our way of thinking is the only correct way of thinking and everybody else is wrong. Not only do we believe that, but we don't even try to understand the other persons point of view because we so strongly believe it is wrong. The prisoner who escaped and came back to persuade his other prisoner colleagues to leave was rejected by his colleagues and was called crazy. The prisoners were so sure that their way of thinking was true and that everyone else was wrong so they didn't even bother to listen to what their colleague was saying. This demonstrates how ignorant one can sound when not considering all points of a story or just simply listening to another persons point of view.

Plato's Allegory of the Cave relates to real, modern day life in many aspects. It demonstrates what benefits can be achieved by becoming open minded. Some of these benefits include gaining the truth and real knowledge. Allegory of the Cave also demonstrates how close minded the human race tends to be in general. By being close minded and believing only your way of thinking is correct, you run the risk of sounding ignorant and missing out on knowledge that you once would have never considered. Allegory of the Cave is an example of how perception is reality showing how the contrasting perception of the escaped prisoner and the trapped prisoners led them each to have a different reality. A fault in Allegory of the Cave is stating how the trapped prisoners have a false reality while the escaped prisoner has a true reality. In a way this is true, but no ones reality is false. Different people in different situations all around the world have different realities and none is more true than the others. Plato's Allegory of the Cave can also relate to the modern day education system how we are just fed information and expected to believe that it is all true without question just like the prisoners are forced to only see the shadows casted upon them and believe it is reality without question or doubt.