The Matrix’, 1999 action sci-fi movie starring Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne and Carrie-Anne Moss generated revolutionary film technology in which changed the future of action sci-fi films forever. However, alongside of the groundbreaking CGI and impressive combat scenes, The Matrix also presents a deeper philosophical meaning by exploring the theme of reality: what is real and what is not. Socrates and Plato, two of the most well-known philosophers who roamed the earth thousands of years ago, believed in numerous concepts that connected with the movie and its beliefs. ‘The Matrix’ addresses the epistemological questions of reality to a good extent, with Neo, Morpheus and The Matrix itself helping us understand and interpret the age-old…show more content… Along the way, Neo’s journey has followed in the footsteps of important philosophers such as Plato, Rene Descartes and Socrates to name a few. Being the product of the Matrix and “born into bondage”, Neo can be compared to the escaped prisoner in Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. In the parable, Plato describes three people who have been chained inside a cave, with a fire behind them and casting a shadow on the statues, trees, animals and people. All they know is the shadows, until one prisoner is freed from his chains to see the statues which cast shadows and decides that these are what the real world are. He is then set free and as he walks out of the cave, he sees the sun for the first time. His eyes had to adjust to the brightness of the sun, but at that moment he learnt/saw the reality of the world. He learnt to accept the truth, unlike the other two prisoners in Plato’s story who killed the freed prisoner when he tried to tell them the truth about the outside world. It was the fact that it was such an abstract thing to believe and their minds were incapable of comprehending such a thing. The prisoner in Plato’s Allegory of the Cave and Neo has this experience in common, an example of this is the significance of their eyes; while Neo is being reconstructed, he asks “Why do my…show more content… “What is real?”, “How do you define real? and “How do you know if you are dreaming?” all link back to the Matrix and the truth about it. When Neo takes the red pill, he ‘wakes up’ and sees things for what they are in real life, learning that his whole life has been a lie. But, he also learns how to manipulate it also. Rehashing the theory that Neo is the prisoner in Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, metaphorically The Matrix is the cave in the parable. Both movie and the Plato’s parable being works of fiction, the point is to question reality and all that is worth in our eyes.
In conclusion, the connection between Socrates and Plato’s teachings of reality and The Matrix’s contemporary outlook on what is real (reality) communicated the message across and through Neo, Morpheus and The Matrix and made us individuals think about reality and whether what we are experiencing right now is real. How will we ever
