Allegory of the Cave and Narrator Essay Example for Free

illustration of the Cave and Narrator EssayAs the philospoher Seneca in one case said, It is the power of the mind to be unconquerable. Raymond Carvers duomo is a story somewhat a man who started out as a closed-minded man but, throughout the story his character changes as he begins to bond with his wifes friend, Robert, a man who is blind. Platos Allegory of the cave is a story about a prisoner who is freed from being locked in chains animate all of his emotional state underground and finding out a different perspective about a lie hes been living his whole life, being told as a conversation between Socrates and Glaucon. In the stories, Cathedral by Raymond Carver, and Allegory of the Cave by Plato, both authors argue that a persons macrocosm is not always what is seems to be. In Cathedral, Raymond Carver uses irony between the bank clerk and Robert when they talk about the cathedral. The narrator tries to explain how a cathedral looks like with words when he says To begin with, theyre very tall. I was looking around the room for clues. They reach way up. Up and up. Toward the sky. Theyre so big, some of them, they experience to become these supports.To help hold them up, so to speak to Robert who is blind and cant really check what is being said. (Carver, scallywag 24, lines 448-451). Until Robert asks to be drawn a cathedral when he says Hey, listen to me. Will you do me a favor? I got an idea. Why dont you find us a penitentiary and some heavy paper. Go on, bub, get the stuff the narrator realizes that Robert sees by touching around the paper. (Carver, page 25, lines 492-495). What the narrator doesnt understand is that the blind man cant see what he sees however though he thinks that by describing with words about how a cathedral looks, helps.The irony Carver is move to show is that the narrator is the one who is blind, not Robert, because he perceives his reality to be similar to Roberts but rather really isnt. In Allegory of the c ave Plato uses metaphor about the message that is being comp atomic number 18d to an imaginary prisoners life. Socrates explains to Glaucon Behold Human beings living in a underground cave, which has a mouth fan out towards the light and reaching all along the cave here they have been from their childhood, and have their legs and bonk chained so that they cannot move, and can only see before them, being prevented by the chains from turing round their heads. higher up and behind them a fire is blazing at a distance, and between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised way and you will see, if you look, a low wall built along the way, like the coer version which marionette players have in front of them, over which they show the puppets to imagine a person who is living a certain kind of way for a long period of time. (Plato, page 8, lines 5-14). Then they argon told that what they are living is a lie when Socrates says And at one timeadays look again, and see what will natu rally ascertain if the prisoners are released and disabused of their error.At first, when any of them is liberated and compelled suddenly to stand up and turn his neck round and wlak and look towards the light, he will suffer sharp pains the glare will distrees him, and he will be unable to see the realities of which in his former state he had seen the shadows and then reckon some one saying to him, that what he saw before was an illusion, but that now, when he is approaching close to being and his eye is turned towards more than real existence, he has a clearer visual sense, -what will be his retort? (Plato, pages 8-9. Lines 42-51). Socrates then says And if he is compelled to look straight at the light, will he not have a pain in his eyes which will make him turn away and take in the objects of vision which he can see, and which he will conceive to be in reality clearer than the things which are now being shown to him to explain that the prisoner will want to believe what h e is already accustomed not to what has precisely been told to him. (Plato, page, lines 57-61).The metaphor that the story compares to is a prisoners life and perspective of reality, once you are told that the way you have been living for your whole life is wrong, you are most likely to be scared of the truth that has just been told to you since the reality that you have been living isnt what it seems to be. In both stories, Cathedral by Raymond Carver and Allegory of the cave by Plato, both authors use imagery to descibe how the characters in the story are lead to a impertinent reality that has been bestow upon them.In Cathedral the narrator learns the way Robert sees things when he says He ran his fingers over the paper. He went up and down the sides of the paper. The edges, even the edges. He fingered the corners. All right, he said. All right, lets do her. He found my hand with the pen. He closed his hand over my hand. Go ahead, bub, draw, he said. Draw. Youll see. Ill fol low along with you.Itll be okay. Just begin now like Im telling you. Youll see. Draw, the blind man said. (Carver, page 26, lines 508-514). Carver reveals that by being very desciptive utilize imagery, the reader can understand how the narrator is getting really tense in a neat way when he is shown that his perspective of reality of blind people just being blind and nought else is about to change.In Allegory of the cave the prisoner is being taken to see a new perspective of the way he used to think when Socrates says And suppose once more, that he is reluctantly dragged up a steep and rugged ascent, and held fast until hes forced into the presence of the sun himslef, is he not likely to be pained and irritated? When he approaches the light his eyes will be dazzled, and he will not be able to see anything at all of what are now called realities. (Plato, page 9, lines 63-68).Plato shows that by using imagery in his story, people can notice that the prisoner is in a lot of pain when he is being shown that his perspective of reality of the shadows being his reality is about to change for the rest of his life. In both stories Cathedral and Allegory of the cave both charcters of the story are being shown a different way of thinking. This new way of thinking evolved them into a better self-importance being. Both charcters, the narrator and the prisoner were challeneged into a new way of thinking, both stuck to it till the end, and both became more of a fulfilled person.