Plato's Allegory of the Cave is an interesting metaphor. The allegory starts with prisoners being held captive and chained up in a cave. A fire is placed behind them so that it may give off shadows to anything that pass by. Everytime something passes by the fire, including people holding figurines and other objects, the prisoners recognize these objects but only through the shadows casted by the fire. One prisoner is freed from his confinements and discovers of the outside world where the sun is the true source of light and also that shadows are but mere reflections of objects. While reading this allegory, I was reminded of a short story that Mr. Shipman had us read in Sophmore year named "The Pedestrian"
"The Pedresian" is a short story by Ray Bradbury and it describes a world in the year of 2053 where books no longer exist and the only thing that most people do all day is watch TV. There is only one person who isn't susceptible to this TV obsession and regularly goes out on evening strolls unlike the rest of the world. This character, named Leonard Mead, encounters a robotic police car that tries to arrest him (Yes, you read that right, a police car tried to arrest him because police no longer existed) and the car is confused when Mead tells it that he is a writer (because again, books didn't exist anymore so writers were obsolete). Afterwards, he is arrested and brought to a psychiatric center in the police car.
I think that these stories are similar in the since that they try to isolate someone for having a higher knowledge that those around him. In the prisoners' case, he has to leave the cave to gain knowledge about the outside world where it is much lighter. He then tries to convince the other prisoners that there world is an illusion but they all think he is just crazy. Mead has a similar situation because everybody in his world just stays in their homes all day and watch TV. The world for the citziens in the short story IS the TV despite the fact that the picture on the screen of the television isn't tangible. So, both the citizens of Mead's world and the prisoners live in a reality that they can't even be physically a part of. Also, in the short story, every home is described to be dark but with a faint light (presumably coming from the TV). This is very similar to the prisoners of the caves because they too reside in a dark place with a faint light, which is the fire. Mead's house is also described to be a very bright house with all of the lights on at the end of the story. You can compare this to how the enlightened prisoner, after he leaves the cave, is more connected to the outside world when he sees the light of the sun. So, in both stories, light is a representation of a higher knowledge. Yet, for having that higher knowledge, both characters are thought be crazy. After having found about the outside world, the prisoner tries to convince the others of the new world but they reject him and call him crazy and, for Mead, the police car thinks he is crazy because he is just taking a stroll outside and also because Mead claims that he is a writer, an occupation that isn't necessary in his world anymore.
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5 comments:
Great observation Rico! Now that I think about it, Bradbury must have been inspired by Plato to write this story warning about the negative impacts of technology. Although he did not really account for the fact that computers would eventually get exponentially smaller rather than larger, Bradbury did an excellent job in predicting that everyone would become addictive to staring at screens or the “false reality.” Since we are the youngest to truly experience life before the explosion of smartphone usage, we should observe how people younger than us behave socially and with their phones because they are the first to grow up thinking that staring at cellphones everyday is the norm rather than a sudden development.
Wow! Nice connection Rico. There are so many different things you could relate the Plato's allegory to, but I think "The Pedestrian" has some very interesting similarities. I would like to point out some key differences. One, Mead is the only one in society who is enlightened or is a part of reality. This is sort of the opposite of the allegory, where the rest of society is able to recognize reality and observe the real world except for the prisoners. Also, I have a question for you Rico. Can you really say that the "unenlightened" TV watchers do not understand reality? I think they understand the world around them, but they choose not to engage in it. The population is trapped for sure and do not remember parts of history and elements of past cultures (here it is writing). The police car thinks he is *MENTALLY UNSTABLE* not crazy because he is participating in something that is not normal or has never been heard of in the modern time. The reality of our lives is always changing, and parts of the past will no longer be remembered as time goes on. This does not mean these people are separated from reality, reality just evolved.
Woah! One of my favorite blog posts Rico! I had forgotten about that story--great observation!
That's actually crazy! Blast to the past...
This is a really cool connection, Rico! The allegory also reminded me of something we read a while back; The City of Ember. I've mentioned this book in a previous blog post about fate, but it is very similar to the allegory also. The characters live in an isolated cave city, but they don't know they're underground. (This is just as the prisoners in the allegory don't know about life outside of their cave.) They think the things they fall over and find beyond the light of their city is deadly and incomprehensible, but they are just things like bugs and rocks that would make sense if they were visible. (This is like the shadows the prisoners see in Plato's allegory.) The main characters discover the city has an escape route that had been designed by engineers years ago for the inhabitants' eventual escape. They reach the surface and are shocked by the world they hadn't known; they try to alert the people they left in the cave by dropping down a note. In Plato's allegory, the newly enlightened person returned to the cave to try and teach the others. I wonder if this allegory was the basis of this story too!
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