For this, world is the world of illusion. Sensory perception is the world of appearance, which we perceive, with the help of our sensory organs. He says that there are two types of perception: sensory perception and spiritual perception. In Allegory of the cave, Plato has also described about our perception. Hence, in allegory of the cave Plato has given a criticism over our limited existence in the material world. The second time dazzling of the eyes symbolizes our difficulty to accept ignorance after knowing the reality. The dazzling of our eyes for the first time symbolizes difficulty of denies the material world. The outer world of the light symbolically suggests the world of spiritual reality, which we achieve by breaking the chains that are used to tie us. The chains symbolize our limitation in this material world so that we cannot know the reality to know reality we have to break the material world. The shadows represent such photocopy and, the reality is possible to know with the spiritual knowledge.

Plato as an ideal philosopher says that the appearing world is just the imitation or photocopy of the real world. In his opinion, the appearance is false and reality is somewhere, which we cannot see. The raised wall symbolizes the limitation of our thinking and the shadow symbolically suggest the world of sensory perception which Plato considers an illusion. The dark cave symbolically suggests the contemporary world of ignorance and the chained people symbolize ignorant people in this ignorant world. The allegory of the cave has also allegorical meaning because so many symbolic suggestions are used in this writings. If he attempts to persuade the people inside the cave saying that the outer world is the real world, and the cave world is unreal, his ignorant friends kill him. Even though, he does not want to go back to the cave world, his eyes dazzle more if he is taken back to the cave world, and he can’t count anything inside darkness. He thinks that it is better to be the slave in the outer world rather than being the king inside the cave. He gives pity and sympathy over the cave people who are lost in darkness. He becomes gratified with himself and remembers the other people in the cave. But if he stays in the outer world, slowly and gradually he begins to identify everything and he becomes to realize that the outer world is the real world and the cave world is the unreal world. If one of the chained people is released from the cave world, and if he is taken to the outer world he cannot see anything at first because his eyes dazzle in the light. In the outer world, there is light and everything is clearly visible. The people inside the cave cannot raise their head completely so that they can only see the shadows like illusion, which they believe, as real but it is just their illusion. On the wall, many other people move with different things on their hands and their shadows fall in the cave world. Similarly, there is also another world out of the cave world, but between these two worlds, a wall is raised.

There are some chained people on their necks as well as feet, these chained people cannot move easily. The cave is very dark because there is little light inside it and hardly seen the objects. In the Allegory of the Cave, Plato has given a description of the cave of the cave world. In allegorical writing characters, actions and setting are used as symbols and they should be interpreted to make the allegorical meaning.

Allegory of the cave analysis