Plato's Allegory Of The Cave Analysis

Plato's Allegory Of The Cave is the story about a man who is released from his chains and is able to see the world for what it truly is. The allegory actually fits the hero's journey archetype rather well. When he is released from his chains he is able to turn around for the first time ever and is able to learn what is casting the shadows on the wall that is everyone elses's reality. He is able to question his world and learn more about it. Eventually he is able to exit the cave that had been everything he had ever known and see the open world for the first time. He explores the world and eventually reaches a spot where he is able to just gaze at the sun. At this point he has become enlightened and has learned more about his world than he ever thought possible. He returns to the cave to try to spread his new found knowledge but is only met with ridicule. The people there either don't believe him or don't care enough to consider the possibility of another reality. This knowledge ends up making him an outcast to his own people. He is no longer able to play the game where they guess what shadow will show up next due to his eyes adjusting to the light of the outside world. His new found knowledge is preventing him from going back to the reality that he used to know and forcing him to look at it the way he now knows it to be. His acquired knowledge that he is trying to spread actually angers his people and eventually some of them end up wanting to kill him to put to an end his talk of another reality. He believes it his duty to try to enlighten his people even if they don't want him to and no matter the consequences, even at the price of death. After becoming enlightened the enlightened must descend back to their previous depths to help the others that are on the same level that they were previously on. Generally the enlightened feel that they are responsible for bringing that same enlightenment to others close to them. This is generally poorly received, with the enlightened then becoming the outcast, unable to break through to anyone and persuade them to give his view of the world. The people generally are unreceptive to this enlightenment because they don't know anything except their own perspective on reality. They have lived their lives chained and looking at the same wall and are content because they do not know any better. no one perspective is more right then the other but those who are enlightened are simply unable to go back to the way things were and as such try to bring others up to their level. The problem with this is that people see no use in being offered a new perspective and as such regard it with little to no value.