Summary Of Plato's Allegory Of The Cave

Plato’s Allegory of the Cave depicts a scene in which people are chained up in a cave, that forces them to face the back wall without the ability to turn their heads. There is a fire burning behind them that casts light onto the wall. Objects are held in front of the fire like a puppet show and all the people can see is the shadows of the objects. These humans have been chained in the cave since birth and the shadows that they see are what they believe to be reality. Some of the prisoners might comment on the shadows that they believe to be reality, even have names for the objects, but not actually know what the objects are casting the shadows. If a prisoner were to escape and exit the cave, they might see their error in thinking the shadows were reality, but the fellow prisoners who are still chained to the wall would think the enlightened prisoner was crazy and perhaps kill them. Plato ends his Allegory by relating the scene of the prisoners back to
The images are abstract and quite old, something you might see in a museum, and they fade in and out over the narration slowly. The music in the background is low and serious, almost like a continuous chant. The narrator quickly explains the scene that Plato describes in the Allegory, then starts to discuss similar ideas from different cultures and examples. First she relates Plato’s ideas to beliefs of those in India, then to the Wizard of Oz and his illusion to power, and lastly to the ideas of gnosticism. In this video, it is a small lecture on Plato’s idea, and then how it relates to other beliefs. The video would be geared more towards an older audience and would be useful if one just wanted a quick rundown of the scene within the Allegory and the ideas that surround it. The language is harder to understand and follow and the illustrations do not help with understanding everything that the narrator is