Eventually he is able to look at the stars and moon at night until finally he can look upon the sun itself (516a). Gradually he can see the reflections of people and things in water and then later see the people and things themselves. Slowly, his eyes adjust to the light of the sun. The sunlight is representative of the new reality and knowledge that the freed prisoner is experiencing. Plato continues: 'suppose.that someone should drag him.by force, up the rough ascent, the steep way up, and never stop until he could drag him out into the light of the sun.' The prisoner would be angry and in pain, and this would only worsen when the radiant light of the sun overwhelms his eyes and blinds him. He writes '.it would hurt his eyes, and he would escape by turning away to the things which he was able to look at, and these he would believe to be clearer than what was being shown to him.' In his pain, Plato continues, the freed prisoner would turn away and run back to what he can see and is accustomed to, that is the shadows of the carried objects. If he is told that what he saw before was not real but instead that the objects he is now struggling to see are, he would not believe it. The light would hurt his eyes and make it hard for him to see the objects that are casting the shadows. Plato then supposes that one prisoner is freed, being forced to turn and see the fire. Right (From top to bottom): 'Good' idea, Ideas, Mathematical objects, Light, Creatures and Objects, Image, Analogy of the Sun, and the Analogy of the Divided Line Left (From top to bottom): Sun Natural things Shadows of natural things Fire Artificial objects Shadows of artificial objects Allegory level. Departure from the caveĪllegory of the Cave. Socrates suggests that the shadows constitute reality for the prisoners because they have never seen anything else they do not realize that what they see are shadows of objects in front of a fire, much less that these objects are inspired by real living things outside the cave (514b-515a). The sounds of the people talking echo off the shadowed wall, and the prisoners falsely believe these sounds come from the shadows (514c). The prisoners cannot see any of this behind them and are only able to see the shadows cast upon the cave wall in front of them. The people walk behind the wall so their bodies do not cast shadows for the prisoners to see, but the objects they carry do ('just as puppet showmen have screens in front of them at which they work their puppets' (514a) ). Behind the prisoners is a fire, and between the fire and the prisoners is a raised walkway with a low wall, behind which people walk carrying objects or puppets 'of men and other living things' (514b). These prisoners are chained so that their legs and necks are fixed, forcing them to gaze at the wall in front of them and not look around at the cave, each other, or themselves (514a–b). Socrates begins by asking Glaucon to imagine a cave where people have been imprisoned from childhood. In particular, he likens our perception of the world around us 'to the habitation in prison, the firelight there to the sunlight here, the ascent and the view of the upper world the rising of the soul into the world of the mind' (517b).

Socrates remarks that this allegory can be taken with what was said before, namely the analogy of the sun and the analogy of the divided line. He then explains how the philosopher is like a prisoner who is freed from the cave and comes to understand that the shadows on the wall do not make up reality at all, for he can perceive the true form of reality rather than the mere shadows seen by the prisoners. The shadows are as close as the prisoners get to viewing reality. The people watch shadows projected on the wall from things passing in front of a fire behind them, and they begin to give names to these shadows.

Plato has Socrates describe a gathering of people who have lived chained to the wall of a cave all of their lives, facing a blank wall. All three are characterized in relation to dialectic at the end of Books VII and VIII (531d–534e).

The allegory is presented after the analogy of the sun (508b–509c) and the analogy of the divided line (509d–513e). It is written as a dialogue between Plato's brother Glaucon and his mentor Socrates, narrated by the latter. The Allegory of the Cave (also called the analogy of the cave, myth of the cave, metaphor of the cave, parable of the cave, and Plato's Cave) is presented by the Greek philosopher Plato in his work the Republic (514a–520a) to compare 'the effect of education ( παιδεία) and the lack of it on our nature'.

The allegory of the cave summary