Comparison of the Matrix and the Allegory of the Cave Essay

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Pages: 5
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Composition I
3 October 2012
The Matrix and the Allegory of the Cave

What if one were living through life completely bound and facing a reality that doesn't even exist? The prisoners in Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" are blind from true reality as well as the people in the movie The Matrix. They are given false images and they accept what their senses are telling them. They believe what they are experiencing is not all that really exists. Plato, the ancient Greek philosopher wrote "The Allegory of the Cave," to explain the process of enlightenment and what true reality may be. In the movie The Matrix, Neo (the main character) was born into a world of illusions called the Matrix. Neo’s true reality is being controlled by the …show more content…
According to Plato, the freed prisoner would have to wonder where the shadows came from or even what there was beyond the cave. He must have sensed something was wrong and he sought out the truth. This is the only way that a prisoner is able to escape. Neo, while on the computer, also has that same pondering idea: to learn more about the truth of the reality he’s in. Plato indicated that the sunlight would hurt the freed prisoners eyes, leaving him briefly blind. At the same time this is what happened to Neo when he was released from his pod, and Neo asks why his eyes hurt. Morpheus replies with "you've never used them before." Plato later suggests that the prisoner would share his discovery of the real world with those who were also trapped in the cave, but he would have no desire to go back to his life in the cave. In the end, his desire to help his fellow prisoners would prevail and just like in The Matrix, this somewhat explains the people on the ship. Upon the prisoners arrival back to the cave to tell his companions about the world that exists outside, the prisoner would have great difficulty in telling them the truth because he would either not be understood or they would not believe him no matter what. In the Matrix, when Morpheus introduces
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