Angelina Tran - The Allegory of the Cave Analysis

 The Allegory of the Cave is a short story with many concepts to debrief. This story follows the idea that there is this civilization that is chained together in a cave constantly with only a fire casting shadows on the cave walls. These shadows are supposedly casted by a fire illuminating these statues or sculptures that the cave civilization believed to depict what outside the cave looked like. However, the story takes a turn of imagination that one of the cave dwellers is able to be unchained and taken into the outside world. The cave dweller is able to experience what the real sun feels like, what trees and bushes look like, and what sand and dirt feel like. Then, the cave dweller is able to go back into the cave and tell the rest of the civilization what the outside world is like. Unfortunately, the cave dweller was only met with disbelief by his people upon hearing his tale about the outside world. WOW. This was such a morbid story the first time I read about this. Why do we humans kill or hate what we do not know? How important is it to want to find the truth and spread it? Were the statues placed by an upperbeing? A trickster? A propaganda movement? Why is the cave civilization chained together as well as not being able to see the sun? There are many questions I had about this story as well as many symbols to debrief. The statues could represent our innate values and beliefs that we will stubbornly hold onto and refuse anything that goes against it. Thus, in the case of when the civilization killed the cave dweller, his story went against their beliefs of the outside world. Despite the cave dweller actually going outside, the civilization did not believe him and killed him. The civilization never saw the outside world firsthand beyond the statues but refused the unknown qualities it could have possessed like the cave dweller described. Humans often fear the unknown which goes along with how we often resist change. Humans like patterns, cycles, and routines so anything against those would cause havoc. Overall, an interesting tale that I only discussed the surface of all the symbols used in this story. Every time I read or discuss the story there is only more to unpack about it!


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Kip Redick Example of a Blog Post

 Page 4 Michael Taussig would suggest Juan's understanding of the meaning of a place emerges out of the process of an imitation of all the “differences” that we discern there. We mimic (in language and action) the full range of sounds, movements, and other sensory perceptions that come to us from the more than human world.” It’s hard to put a place that strikes us as sublime into mere words; we can try to describe it as a feeling and try to put language to that feeling, but sometimes the feeling of the beauty of nature or the power of a sacred space is too big to try to translate or make sense of. Would every place and experience be subjective, and would the discourse be the same? Would the mountain top make me feel the same as another? Or does my personal experience with the natural world and divine keep it intimate/ unique, or would my experience be relatable enough? The author uses the messiness, ambiguity, and mystery of people's deeply personal experience of ...
Read more

Rose Baker - Herbert's "Dune" and Martyrs

  In class, we talked about Jesus and Christianity as an example of myth. Myths and martyrs are dangerous to systems of control because even if they’re suppressed, they can survive and grow stronger. They last because they’re tied to belief, memory, and emotion---things you can’t fully erase. That’s what makes them more powerful than systems built on forced order or control. Even though much of the early church died gruesome deaths, and were consistently ordered to stop spreading the gospel, the "myth" of Jesus has continued for over 2000 years.      In Frank Herbert's  Dune , we see something similar. The Bene Gesserit know how powerful myths can be, and instead of waiting for one to form naturally, they build one on purpose. Through the Missionaria Protectiva , they plant stories and prophecies across different cultures, preparing the world for someone to fulfill the one part they can't fabricate, the living, breathing "savior" who must be visible and prov...
Read more

Joanah Eresechima - Blue Lock's Exploration of Flow

In the sixth chapter of American Camino , the concept of flow is extensively explained in the context of spiritual walking. It is described as unification of action and awareness to create a state in which thoughts are non-existent. The hiker just moves through the world, extremely aware and focused on the wilderness around them but unable to thoroughly reflect on it in that moment. It is only afterwards that the hiker is able to recall the memories from their flow state. Flow can occur in different types of people like artists, scientists and athletes (Redick 249). I was actually very surprised to see this term in the book because it becomes one of the central components in a manga I read called Blue Lock. The story followed a boy named Isagi Yoichi, a high school soccer player who got a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to join a soccer program called Blue Lock meant to create the greatest striker in the world. Out of 300 players, he was ranked 299 th , making him one of the weakest p...
Read more