Day 5 Monday, September 20
READING:
- Plato, The Republic, Book VII, “Allegory of the Cave”
Class Activities
Learn a little background and context of Plato’s Republic and the cave allegory. Discuss the text in groups and answer discussion questions. Informal in-class writing assignment.
WRITING (due by the end of the day):
Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, Day 1
- Write a Post that does the following (approximately 200-250 words):
- Write a summary of Plato’s text. What’s going on here? Where are we? Who’s there? What do they look like? What’s happening?
- Write a paragraph answering this question: Would you rather be a prisoner from the cave or would you want to be released from the cave? CHOOSE ONE. You cannot choose both! Explain the choice you made and why you made it.
Day 6 Wednesday, Sept 22
READING & WATCHING:
- Read Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” again. Be on the lookout for moments where Plato emphasizes the physical and concrete details that the prisoners experience; for example, pay attention to anything they see, hear, and physically feel (along with what causes it). Find three of these details, and think about what they might symbolize.
- Watch the two short videos for Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave”: here and here
Activities
WRITING: Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, Day 2
- Write a Post that does the following (approximately 200-250 words):
- List symbolic details you identified in Plato’s text.
- Pick three details to focus on: for each detail, write a few sentences explaining the point/s Plato is trying to make through his imagery.
- Have you ever had an experience where you felt like you were in a “cave” or where you felt like you emerged from a “cave.” Freewrite about that experience. Include as many specific details as possible (think about your five senses when writing: recall what you saw, but also what you heard, smelled…). Hold on to this freewrite, as you may want to return to these ideas for your first project.
- Explain how the symbols you’ve identified in Plato’s story relate to your own “cave” experience.
- Respond to the Discussion Question “Further Brainstorming for your Education Narrative”: Return to your list of brainstormed topics for your educational narrative and think about how they relate to the experience of Plato’s prisoners and/or to the freed prisoner. Write a paragraph discussing any connections between Plato’s allegory and your own experience. These connections might reflect a positive experience, a negative experience, or both.
1. Symbolic details: The blinding light that you’re exposed to after being in the darkness for a long time, The discussion of belief vs knowledge and the different truths we decide to reason with, based on our experiences
2. The first detail would be the cage. The cage would represent the box some of us are placed in. Our own personal comfort since we know nothing but that. The second detail would the shadows. The shadows represent what we’ve been seeing the whole time and help to build up the idea that it’s the ‘real thing’. Objects itself suddenly become unrealistic, simply because the shadow is the ‘truth’. The last detail could be the escape of the prisoner. The Philosopher is represented by the escaped prisoner, who seeks knowledge outside of the cave and beyond the senses.
3. A time I could say I felt like I was in a cage could be when I was young and in middle school. Not many years have passed since then, but I do know the cage feeling all too well. The middle school I attended was the same school my mother worked at. You can just imagine how that is, especially when that era was filled with new sneakers, cool bookbags, and expensive phones. I didn’t always have that. I remember walking into the cafeteria and hearing some boys from my class scream “WHAT ARE THOSE!!” Towards my shoes. It’s quite funny now that I think of it, but back then,I felt so sad and tried my best to get what they had, just to fit in. This experience isn’t about the kids making fun of me, but rather about the type of mindset I had then.The mindset to please everybody. The mindset to get all of these things everyone else had just because it was popular. That in itself is a cage I found myself in. It wasn’t until the summer before high school that I then realized I don’t live to please people. Trends come and go, and so does popularity. My escaping of that cage was me feeling content with myself and what I had.
4. The cave would be the mindset of living for the world or pleasing other people. The shadows would be the norm of getting new sneakers as soon as they drop and staying on top of the trends and the escape would be realizing that the only person you should please and be content with is yourself.
These are vivid details to point out. Your anecdote about your shoes really helps to illustrate the point you make about feeling like you’ve been in a cage.
A connection that i can make with plato’s allegory is when i went away for camp i felt very home sick because i was far away from home, i was in another state that i was very unfamiliar with and it was painful at first but i had to adjust to the new environment that i was in .My experience relates plato’s experience because i’ve been hypothetically in a cave since imm so used to being home and not trying new things until my mom put me in a camp which was very unfamiliar to what i was used to. It hurted me that i was going to be far away from home. I was home sick for about 2 days but i adjusted to a new environment that i thought i wasn’t going to like.
You make a helpful connection to the reading with your camp experience. I wonder how the pandemic might also relate to the cave allegory, and shadow vs. sunlight experiences?