Main Message of Allegory of The Cave

The Darkness

In this world, there are many things going on. A lot may know what is happening and some may not. There are many “dark” places in the world where they are isolated from the outside and they only know about the inside. Countries like the People’s Republic of China and North Korea are great examples of this matter, the people “trapped” in those countries have no clue about what is happening in the world that they live in. The idea of the “dark” is similar in a way to the essay, Allegory of the Cave and a 1998 movie called Pleasantville. In Allegory of the Cave by Plato, the story depicts the feelings of being in a dark cave and away from the light. In the movie Pleasantville, two characters are trapped into a television show from their normal lives and they have no idea what is going on in the real world after being trapped into the show. Darkness is a big problem in our society today and analyzing it would give us a deeper understanding of what it is.

Allegory of the Cave describes how negative being in a dark cave can be. A quote in the third paragraph of the essay follows, “Above and behind them a fire is blazing in the distance. They see only their own shadows which fire throws on the opposite wall of the cave. For how could they see anything but the shadows if they were never allowed to move their heads.” This quote tells us that the people are stuck in the cave are not knowing what is going on outside of the cave. Whatever happens in the cave will stay in the cave, just like the countries mentioned. Paragraph 10 of the essay, “And suppose once more that he is reluctantly dragged up a steep and rugged ascent and held fast until he is forced into the presence of the sun itself. When he approaches the light, his eyes will be dazzled. He will not be able to see anything at all of what are now called realities. He will require to grow accustomed to the sight of the upper world.” In this paragraph, Plato is saying that light can brighten someone and make them see realities. The people trapped in the cave cannot see reality because the cave is so dark and there is no light that can brighten them. If the cave people cannot see realities, then they must be seeing propaganda which is their own shadow. There is nothing else they can see in the cave since it is so dark.

The 1998 movie, Pleasantville describes how unhappy two characters, David and Jennifer are since they got trapped into a television show. The movie started out with David and Jennifer fighting over a television remote because the shows they wanted to watch were different. The remote broke after it dropped. They called up a repairman and he gave them a new one in which it broke again after it dropped. The television then pulled in David and Jennifer into the show. When they got into the show, they had to get used to the black and white world and not knowing what is happening in their actual would or where they came from. The Pleasantville that David and Jennifer got pulled into felt like an isolated world where Pleasantville does not know what is happening outside. Pleasantville is different from the outside world since they both have different people, environment, and much more. Pleasantville is a very outdated place where technology lags. Later in the movie, David and Jennifer start to experience problems and they want to leave. Overall, Pleasantville might not be so pleasant at all since it is not as cool as the outside world.

In conclusion, darkness and isolation is not fiction, but they are really events that are currently happening. They are both not positive and happy things to be experiencing, but it is good to understand them and use Allegory of the Cave and Pleasantville to analyze the topic. Both of those examples are very similar to darkness and isolation in many ways. Darkness and isolation should be reduced since many people are suffering from dark propaganda that is going around. Hopefully, the countries of the People’s Republic of China and North Korea will become more open and into the outside world. With this, the outside society can understand them and they can understand the outside society.