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Andrea Maynez
Maya Alapin
ENGL 220
October 2, 2015
The Cave Allegory & Education
Striving for more than ones typical education is the essential meaning of the Cave
allegory, nobody can show you the light, you have to want to find it and seek it out yourself.
Platos cave allegory can be seen to have so many different meaning and interpretations. One of
those interpretations is through education and how the two can relate. The allegory is a dialogue
on the idea of education as well as the idea that individuals that seek knowledge/enlightenment
cannot and will not be understood by the masses even if it is the truth.
Many people are in the prisoners point of view, they think they may know what they see
but in reality that isnt the truth. In the Allegory it goes on to explain that the prisoners think they
know what a camel is but what they know is only the shadow of the camel; so if these Prisoners
were to be released outside of the cave, they would not be able to recognize an actual camel, they
may even think it is something else that they thought they had seen. So throughout this account,
Plato is trying to get the point across that we may think we know what we are seeing but unless
we are open to being pushed outside of our comfort zone to truly know whats out there, we will
not understand anything beyond the shadows. This allegory can almost go hand in hand with
education, going beyond ones comfort zone in education can add so many different learning
opportunities.
Platos Allegory of the Cave has been around for many centuries and has enlightened
many through history and antiquity. The story of the Cave Allegory is told through Platos
Republic through a string of dialog in Book Seven told by a fictional character of Socrates.
Socrates is a philosopher during the time of Greece and around 380BC. Socrates is a man that
seeks enlightenment and seeks to see beyond the true ways of society. The Cave Allegory is a
story of prisoners chained up in a cave and are forced to watch that has projections of shadows

on the cave wall produced by a fire lit behind the prisoners. All the prisoners know is that the
shadows are the prisoners reality. They know nothing outside the cave and the do not dare to
move from their bondages because of the pain that is inflicted on their body for being held by the
chains for so long. To move is to endure great pain, so the prisoners stay put and do not seek to
look behind them. The Allegory of the Cave continues and explains that one day a prisoner
begins to move. He endured the pain of being bound for so long but he continues anyway,
despite the pain. He frees himself from his captivity and beings to search about the cave and
explore. He travels in many different directions but sometimes the direction that the prisoner
takes is met with a dead end, and therefore he retreats back. One day the prisoner begins to
search about the cave and sees a light. The prisoner follows the light, which eventually leads him
outside of the cave where he is met with blindness from the outside world. Once the prisoner
regains his eye sight he begins to explore the outside world and is amazed by all the sights and
the True Forms of all the objects around him. The shadows do not exist and he realizes that the
Cave has been a lie and that all that he has known for his whole life has been a lie. With this
realization the prisoner rushes back into the cave to tell his fellow inmates about what he has
seen and of what he now knows. To his surprise his friends do not believe him and refuse to look
behind themselves and just continue to stare at the shadows that are projected onto the wall. The
freed prisoner is now left alone to seek out his own new life within the true forms of reality. This
story told by Socrates is one that has been told before in an earlier point in time. If one is to reach
farther back into the past, the tale of the Odyssey has already discussed this topic in detail.
The Odyssey is a tragedy written by the scholar named Homer. To start, Homer is not
considered the creator or founder of the tale of the Odyssey, but is considered a commentator (a
man that writes with his own words as well as brings together many other mens word into the
story), rather than the true author of the Odyssey. For those whom have not read the Odyssey, it

is tale of a man named Odysseus on his quest back to his homeland Ithaca after sacking the great
city of Troy. His journey back to his home kingdom takes a total of twenty years due to the fact
of many unfortunate circumstances that are due to his own folly and the folly of his men. While
back in Ithaca his wife Penelope, son Telemachus, and his father, all gravely miss him. The tales
of Odysseus have been mixed and not a soul is certain whether Odysseus is still alive or has
perished at sea. During this grieving process Telemachus is forced to take the thrown of his
father kingdom and rule over the land. The Suitors, or the royal men of Ithaca, have taken hold
inside of Odysseus and Telemachus castle. The Suitors continue to eat Telemachus and his
mother out of house and home and disrupt the entire kingdom. The Suitors also are trying to
marry Penelope and take the kingdom for their own even though Penelopes eyes are filled with
tears every day and every night for her loss of Odysseus. On top of this the Suitors are devising a
plan to murder Telemachus so that they may force the hand of Penelope. The Suitors are evil men
and do not follow the rules of the land. The relation between Platos Allegory of the Cave and the
tragedy the Odyssey is that both convey the same message.
The Odyssey conveys Platos point, or the Odyssey made and established a starting point
for Platos Allegory through chapter two in the tragedy. The title of this chapter is called the
Debate in Ithaca and the setting is as follows. Telemachus has been inspired by the Goddess
Athene to carry out an expedition to search for information about the whereabouts of his long
lost father. To do this he is told to gather all of Ithaca, mainly the political officials, whom most
of them are the Suitors. Each character throughout the tale of the Odyssey is a person with their
own agency. No one man is controlled by and outside force, and therefore every man should
follow the normal laws of the land the preside him. There is a reoccurring theme throughout the
Odyssey, which revolves around the idea of theory. Theory translated by the Greeks is almost
translated into the word Truth. Time and time again there are Truths, or theories, presented

before Odysseus, Telemachus, and the Suitors. It is up to the man to act with his own agency to
call upon that truth and to follow the truth with ones heart and soul. This sort of individual is
called and Artificer. This is the idea of being an agent within ones own reality. When an
individual refuses to follow the truth, one is essentially bending the reality around themselves
and making the present absent is considered to be displaying moral blindness and refusing to see
the truth. This person is called an architectonic individual, someone who bends realty to fit their
need. Going back to the debate with Telemachus and the land of Ithaca, Telemachus pleads to the
Suitors to stop eating him out of his own home during this time of grieving. But the Suitors
refuse to listen. One three separate occasions the Suitors refuse to hear the theory, or truth, that is
laid out before them.
One the first occasion of the truth being shown, it is displayed by the God Zeus. Homer
then says, In his answer to the Suitor Antinous, Zeus urged tow eagles into flight from the
mountain topas soon as they were directly over the meeting place they began to flap their
wings and wheel about, glancing down at the faces of the crowd with looks of foreboding
deaththey clawed at each other, (p.18). This is the first sign of truth that the Suitor disregard
and push aside. They continue to plead Not guilty to the charges placed upon them by
Telemachus. The next signal of truth comes from an old prophet named Halitherses. He begins to
speak about the meaning behind the two eagles to the entire assembly of Ithaca and what it was
intended for. According to Homer, A great calamity is about to engulf them. Odysseus is not
going to be parted from his friends much longer. At this very moment he is close at hand, sowing
the seeds of a bloody doom for the SuitorLets us plan to stop these men before it happens,
(p.19). Again with this truth is spilt out right in front of the Suitors, but they again refuse to hear
the reality of the situation. This time the Suitor that raises to reply is Eurymachus and he refutes
Halitherses claims completely. The last spoken truth comes from a great family friend of

Telemachus and Odysseus who is also in attendance at the assembly. His name is Mentor and he
raises to say Of course it is not for me to pass judgment the villainy of those black-hearted
Suitors- it is in their own skins they are risking when they squander Odysseus estate in the belief
that he is gone foreverYet not a word have they had from you in condemnation or restraint!
(Page 21). Again, for the third time, the truth has been given to the Suitors that they are creating
and making their own fate and that they are doomed if they continue their path, but they refuse to
hear this truth. Because the Suitors are considered the highest ranking officials in Ithaca, the
people of Ithaca refuse to take up arms against the Suitor. Mentor, Halitherses, and Telemachus
are out number and are considered the ones that are wrong. The debate ends with nothing
accomplished and the Suitors will continue to rape the household of Telemachus.
Viewing the Cave allegory as ones own education can enlighten them to move beyond
their basic educations curriculum. As well as going above and beyond a degree, opening their
mind to others interpretations of varies things in life. In education, especially as teachers, they
cant really have a biased opinion about the subjects they are teaching. They are given the
material to teach and thats how they must do it. They are also told to only accept answers in the
form taught. Like in the cave to the prisoners, they are not open to the idea of what they think
shadows are to be something else. Teachers need to be able to interpret different answers they
receive from students. There are many different ways to get to an answer than just one formal
way. As students, they need to realize that there is so much more out there than the basic
curriculum, they need to ask questions that go beyond the lesson. If they have a different opinion
on the topic, they should be able to state it. When the released prisoner comes back to tell his
friends what they outside world is like, they dont believe him and really dont know who he is
anymore. Thats what happens in the classroom all the time, when a student has a different point
of view on something, they are told to keep it to themselves.

Students today are not allowed to go beyond the curriculum and are restricted by it, at
least until they get to the college level. But by that point, they dont want to, they just want to get
through it like everyone else. The students can be seen as the prisoners in the cave, they are
chained to their desks and curriculum, and this can also be seen for teachers. The administration
as well as some teachers can be depicted as the unseen objects and people. Not everything is as it
seems, especially in the education world. Plato presents as a common practice of educators, who
"claim to introduce knowledge into a soul which doesn't have it, as if they were introducing sight
into eyes which are blind",(www.plosin.com). There are now such strict guidelines that the
students are essentially unable to remove the chains and move their head to other opinions and
thoughts of the world.

Bibliography
Education and Plato's Parable of the Cave. (n.d.). Retrieved September 1, 2015, from
http://www.plosin.com/work/PlatoCave.html
Spragens, T. (1976). Understanding political theory. New York, New York: St. Martin's
Press.
Rieu, E. (1946). The Debate in Ithaca. In The Odyssey. Baltimore, Maryland: Penguin.
Book 7. (1948). In C. Reeve (Trans.), Plato Republic. Indianapolis, Indiana: Hackett
Publishing Company.