Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” is a piece focusing on the human perception of life and reality. In today’s world, many people have a false image of reality. Plato’s piece is relevant and significant because it points out these distorted perspectives and emphasizes the importance of reorienting one’s self in order to recognize the truth about life, humanity, the world, etc. The main issue is that there are lots of ignorant people in this world who end up accepting everything they are given at face value. These people become “prisoners” to the illusions of the world and end up not even trying to dig deeper into the thoughts and ideas handed to them. This has become such an increasingly prevalent problem in our society today especially since there are so many sources like technology and media that has gained so much power over us, influencing our thoughts, feelings, actions, and perceptions. Every person is capable of learning more about reality and capable of furthering themselves on a path of intellectual growth; however, what it truly comes down to is one’s desire to do so.
Now, the audience addressed truly embodies almost every human being. This means there is not one specific group that is being reached out to, which is significant in the author’s argument because Plato had to create metaphors and symbols that could relate to a broad audience on many levels in order to appeal to as many people as he can.
In doing so, Plato used pathos, logos, and ethos to support his argument. In order to appeal to the audience’s emotions and elicit feelings that already reside in them, Plato made the people in the cave prisoners, which certainly creates a horrifying image in the reader’s mind already. On top of this, the prisoners actually represent all the human beings who are trapped, so the audience realizes they can relate to these prisoners and makes them feel anger that they are actually the ones trapped. The chains Plato specifies also stirs up anger and sadness in the reader because it creates vivid and brutal imagery in the reader’s mind. Additionally, Plato uses pathos by introducing the shadows which ultimately represent the perceptions of the prisoners. The shadows are only a portion of reality, but the prisoners believe in the shadows. This appeals to the emotions of the audience because the reader also becomes upset over how the prisoners are being manipulated by the shadows and creating a false perspective in the prisoners’ minds. The pathos then switches tones at the end when the emotions brought out are triumph and happiness as the prisoners found an escape and discovered new knowledge about true reality. On top of this, Plato utilizes logos to appeal to the reader through logic by basing his piece off the Theory of Forms, which is actually attributed to Plato himself. This theory suggests that the physical world is not as real or true as ideas that are absolute and timeless. In other words, the theory presents that the physical world is ever-changing and therefore can only be a source of opinion. This well-known philosophical theory gives some credibility behind Plato’s true message in “Allegory of the Cave,” which makes the readers even more enticed to read his work. Lastly, relating to the same idea, Plato uses ethos because his credibility as a philosopher automatically gives him some authority since he has been well-educated in philosophy and theory.
Plato uses rhetorical devices to effectively convey his argument that humans are often so blind to the knowledge they are freely given that they miss out on experiencing a new level of knowledge about reality. There are a lot of metaphors used in “Allegory of the Cave” that truly highlight his purpose by using symbols to relate one concept to the next. For example, the cave that the prisoners are trapped in represents how our knowledge is covered in darkness, just like a cave in real life. Similar to how being in a dark confined space prevents a person from seeing the real world, they are trapped in this misunderstanding of the world. The game described in Plato’s work directly correlates with the idea that there can be a master or leader when people are trapped in the empirical world. However, the point of bringing in this idea was to emphasize how it is a game and not actually real. That is, there is not one person who dominates over others in any sort of truth. In the philosophical world there is no hierarchy and people understand things on a new level. Another metaphor was the light, which represents one’s ability to comprehend the truth. Lastly, the escaped prisoner is a way of representing the philosopher. Philosophers desire to dig deeper into what the world has to offer. They seek what is beyond the cave in this case. Metaphors and symbols are clearly a large aspect contributing to Plato’s rhetorical techniques that ultimately lead to his purpose being successfully expressed.
In addition to both metaphors and symbolism, Plato also uses the rhetorical device of rhetorical questions to convey his message. The author incorporates rhetorical questions throughout the entire piece. In fact, almost every paragraph or section has at least one rhetorical question. Some back to back questions even elaborate his usage of this technique including:
“What do you think he would say, if someone told him that what he saw before was foolery, but now he saw more rightly, being a bit nearer reality and turned towards what was a little more real? What if he were shown each of the passing things, and compelled by questions to answer what each one was? Don’t you think he would be puzzled, and believe what he saw before was more true than what was shown to him?”
These questions have the purpose of subtly influencing the audience in thinking a certain way, directing their thought paths toward the author’s main goal of addressing the issue presented. As shown above, many of his rhetorical questions are quite descriptive, which demonstrates how Plato attempts to place certain key words or phrases in the readers head as well to draw attention to a specific topic or idea. Rhetorical questions can be so simple, but they truly make the writers ideas become more powerful in a way that is somewhat indirect.
This technique also adds to the writer’s voice, which is very calm and serious. The rhetorical questions contribute to his informative voice without being to authoritative or abrupt. This serious voice also aligns with the tone which is quite dark for the most part, but I think the sad and depressing tone created by the atmosphere Plato presents makes his argument most effective. The issue of humanity becoming so blind to reality is such a real, prevalent issue and cannot be downplayed by any lighter subject.
Overall, I think Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” makes use of rhetorical devices to effectively convey the message that people are stuck relying on their senses to make opinions and perceptions of the world or reality when instead real knowledge and truth derives from thinking beyond what the physical world provides in front of us. That is, through philosophical reasoning and digging into a sort of spiritual knowledge, one can discover what reality is outside from the material world. In order to get these points across, Plato combined different techniques of rhetoric to appeal to the audience in a way that would stir up interest so that his message could be taken to heart by as many readers as possible.
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