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English 120
Alexandra Smith
Instructor: Maya Alapin
Due: October 6, 2014
Platos Allegory of the Cave From My Perspective
Plato's dialogues have been used to teach a range of subjects, including philosophy,
logic, ethics, rhetoric, religion and mathematics (Wikipedia). This quote caught my eye because
of the one word religion. After reading this piece of work I have decided to look at it from a
religious point of view. Religion, mainly Christianity, is the direction this essay is headed in.
This reading can be taken many different ways. Reading this, it could be seen from a
political standpoint, a metaphorical standpoint, religious standpoint and even just an educational
standpoint. This essay is taking the religious point of view. This question has been asked; What
is Platos message about education in the allegory of the Cave Respond to both the reading and
the Claymation video? In this essay I will answer this question to the best of my ability from the
religious views of a Christian. I will first tell you what the story was mainly about, give you a
short summary, and then I will go into how I took the story and tell you all about my perspective
and what I got out of this story.
This story is titled Allegory of the Cave by the famous philosopher Plato, written in
360 B.C.E. (Classics). This story can be found in book VII of Platos best-known work, The
Republic, a lengthy dialogue on the nature of justice (Kreis). Here is a short summary. This
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story starts off explaining the somewhat depressing setting. There are three men that are in a
cave that were taken from their homes as young children and have grown up with chains around
their neck, both arms and both legs. They were chained so tight they could not move their head
from side to side, and could not walk around or move their arms. All they knew was this cave.
They were frozen in a position pretty much, just facing a boring wall. This cave was very dark
inside, but there was a fire behind them. Between the men and the fire there was a wall. This wall
let other people travel through the cave. Since the prisoners are facing the wall all they could see
were shadows. One day one of the men was let go and drug outside. This man saw what the
outside world was and how remarkable it was and decided to go back into the cave and tell the
others what he has seen and how much they were missing. The other prisoners that were not let
go did not know who this was, or what he was saying, all they saw was another shadow. This
was a very short summary of this brilliant story.
Now, onto how I perceived this story. The very first thing that popped into my head when
reading this was God. The reason I thought this right away was because I am a Christian and I
do believe in God. I imagined this story as God freeing us from our sins, and I also saw it as a
story about nonbelievers. By this I mean the men in the cave are uneducated and do not know
God, and when someone goes out and explores and learns and gains the knowledge of God he is
so excited he decides to go and spread the word, but to nonbelievers they do not know what he is
talking about, they do not know (or cannot believe) in something they cannot see or understand.
This is why I took the religious point of view.

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This is a great story about education. There are so many people out there that are okay or
comfortable knowing what they know and not learning anything else, and that really makes me
kind of sad for those people. I think Platos message about education is really strong and
powerful. The message is to not be afraid of experiencing something new, and to not be afraid to
have faith and believe or feel something you cannot see. That is the message I got from the
reading, the message I got from the Claymaiton video was pretty much the same thing. The
Claymation video was more about education to me. The video really showed how important it is
to get an education and how much better your life could be if you have an education and knew
other (more) things.
In conclusion, Plato was very brilliant writing this story. I know a lot of philosophers do
not believe in God, but that is exactly who I thought of while reading this short story. At the
beginning I wrote that some of Platos writings, or dialogues, are used for many different
teachings including religion. Some Christians argue that this story is similar to the experience of
various individuals who have divine visions that lead to greater religious knowledge, such as
God's existence or even his will (HubPages). I completely agree with this statement. I thought
this was a very good story because it pertains to everyone, believers, nonbelievers, politicians,
young people, old people, all kinds of human beings.


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Works Cited
Kries, Steven. "Plato, "The Allegory of the Cave"" The History Guide. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Sept.
2014. <http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/allegory.html>.
"Plato." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 18 Sept. 2014. Web. 18 Sept. 2014.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato>.
"The True Role of Platos Allegory of the Cave." HubPages. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Sept. 2014.
<http://paddyphilosophy.hubpages.com/hub/The-True-Role-of-Platos-Allegory-of-the-
Cave>.