PLATO'S MYTH OF THE CAVE

the picture of a prisoner who being prison in the cave where they can't move their whole body accept their eyes who only sees the shadows cast on the wall.

Human beings sit in a cave, in chains, their backs to the entrance. The shadows of things moving outside are projected by the light onto an inner wall of the cave. As the prisoners have never been outside the cave since birth, they believe these shadows are reality. One of them succeeds in freeing himself and walks outside into the light. He realizes that he has lived his whole life in the shadow of an illusion. Delighted by his discovery, he returns to the cave to communicate it to the others. Violence erupts between the one who ventured outside and those who do not want to understand. The story ends with the death of the person that had gained insight into reality.

In this story, the prisoners can't barely move their body, they have been chained on their legs and their necks which prevented them to turning their heads around. They just can see the shadows which are projected by the fire behind their back. The only thing that they can see is only the puppet player who made from the wood and presented by the image of men and animals. The prisoner had been in the caves for years and for them, the image are real.

One day, there is one old man, free one of the prisoners because of sympathy of their condition. Immediately, the prisoner turn around to look at the source of the light, at first, the prisoner's eyes hurts as he just look at the shadows that projected by the fire for years. The old man spokes to the prisoners that the puppet player is actually is just an illusion. The Prisoners still insist that the puppet players exist because the shadows are much truer than the statue.