Summer : Plato's Allegory of the Cave

     Plato's Allegory of the Cave is an excerpt from "The Republic." In this short story, Plato, a Greek Philosopher tells of Socrates and his student Glaucon, about men that are held prisoner in a cave. These men were born and raised in this cavernous den, only to see nothing but each others shadows. Plato continues to say that these men have accepted that this cave and its shadows, are their reality 

     One man in particular challenges the cave, and seeks out the light outside it, to find that beyond the cave walls, there are actually people, and an entire world outside of what he once knew. Socrates goes on to tell Glaucon that the man will have doubts on what is real and what is not and wonder whether to tell his cave buddies. In the end, the enlightened cave man will be sentenced to death if he went back to enlighten the others.