In both “The Allegory of the Cave” by Plato and “The Pedestrian” by Ray Bradbury, the idea of being trapped in a false reality that causes unhappiness is a central theme. In “The Allegory of the Cave” the prisoners are trapped in the cave, only able to see the shadows on the wall rather than the real objects themselves. They mistake those shadows for reality until one of them is freed and comes to understand the true nature of things. SImilarly in “The Pedestrian” society is so lost in the world of television that they have forgotten the simple pleasure of going out. Leonard Mead’s nightly walks made him an outsider and a suspicious individual to the authorities since he had escaped their constructed reality. The reasons for disconnection from
