Allegories and Epiphanies

    Don’t you hate it when you get up one morning, take a look around, walk outside, and realize that everything you thought you knew about life was a lie? Yeah, you’re not alone. It’s rarely a fun experience to go through an epiphany—a complete change in perspective—like this. It can be a strange, scary incidence that is accompanied by a lot of pain, confusion, anger, and fear, and it often leads to experiences that are new and unknown. Epiphanies can lead to doubts and questions about what we think to be true and, if they are serious enough, to the reevaluation of ideas that we have held our entire lives. True epiphanies come as a result of discovering new truths that shed light on facts or information that was previously unknown to us, facts that can cause us to think deeply and consider the conclusions that we have about our knowledge of the world that we live in. These changes in thought can range in size and magnitude, but the typical epiphany causes a pretty large impact on the person that experiences it, usually resulting in an overall difference in the way a person thinks and lives his life compared to before the event occurred. In Plato’s Republic, Socrates tells an intriguing story of an epiphany that is experienced by a person who has lived his entire life in a cave. This allegory contains many insightful facets and details and many interpretations have been made of it, but at its heart the story is an illustration of the power of learning, the drastic differences between education and ignorance, the difficult process associated with the transition from ignorance to knowledge, and the dramatic effect that the truth can have on our lives when we come into contact with it.

    In the context in which the story is presented, Socrates is in a discussion with a group of men attempting to discover what justice is and describe its true nature. In order to do this, they have considered a wide variety of topics and are now probing into the nature of knowledge and education. Many interpretations have been made of this story and those interpretations have varied drastically in the intended meaning that they assert Socrates was trying to get across here, but the original intended meaning of the story is actually rather bluntly stated by Socrates himself. He makes the statement at the beginning of the story: “Next, then, compare the effect of education and that of the lack of it on our nature to an experience like this” (514a). This story is supposed to be an imagined experience that is similar to and can be compared to the effects that education has on our nature, both when we have education and when we are in lack of it. This is the intention of Socrates’ allegory stated directly by Socrates himself. It is a figurative story intended to convey the power and importance of education and learning, and it does this by contrasting the states of those with learning to those without learning using very forceful imagery: those without learning are like people living their entire lives in a dark cave believing that shadows on the wall are real, while those who learn and receive education are like people who leave the blindness and shadows of the cave behind to step into the light of day and see things for what they really are.

    In order to convey this importance and relate the power of learning, he describes the between the existence in the cave and when one starts groping towards the light that is above. He starts out by describing the condition of the cave’s inhabitants:

Imagine human beings living in an underground, cavelike dwelling, with an entrance a long way up that is open to the light and as wide as the cave itself. They have been there since childhood, with their necks and legs fettered, so that they are fixed in the same place, able to see only in front of them, because their fetter prevents them from turning their heads around. Light is provided by a fire burning far above and behind them. Between the prisoners and the fire, there is an elevated road stretching. Imagine that along this road a low wall has been built—like the screen in front of people that is provided by puppeteers, and above which they show their puppets.        (514a-514b)

Also imagine, then, that there are people alongside the wall carrying multifarious artifacts that project above it—statues of people and other animals, made of stone, wood, and every material. And as you would expect, some of the carriers are talking and some are silent.        (514c-515a)

This bizarre scene is the condition that Socrates equates to the lack of education. He goes on in his description to say that they have never seen any of the artifacts above the wall, eachother, or anything else other than the cave wall in front of them because their heads are constantly fettered facing forwards (515a-515b), they believe that the words they use when talking to each other apply to the shadows passing in front of them (515b), and because of the echo they believe that when they hear the carriers talking, the voices are actually coming from the shadows themselves (515b). Because of this restrained existence and the prisoners’ lack of ability to look around or move anywhere else, he concludes about their condition, “All in all, then, what the prisoners would take for true reality is nothing other than the shadows of those artifacts” (515c). This is a rather depressing thought when one considers that this is supposedly the same situation that everyday people who do not have learning are in: they are stuck looking ahead at things in the same way that they always have, unable to see clearly, and only having a shadow of an idea of what things in life really are. But, thankfully, this is not the state that the cave’s inhabitants have to stay in.

The cave-dwellers have the option to break their chains of unknowing and journey up towards the light at the opening of the cave. In doing so, they are leaving behind everything they’ve ever known to gaze upon a world they have never seen and experience things they’ve never experienced before. This process is challenging, confusing, and draining and it is precisely the next thing that Socrates describes:

Consider, then, what being released from their bonds and cured of their foolishness would naturally be like, if something like this should happen to them. When one was freed and suddenly compelled to stand up, turn his neck around, walk, and look up toward the light, he would be pained by doing all these things and be unable to see the things whose shadows he had seen before, because of the flashing lights. What do you think he would say if we told him that what he had seen before was silly nonsense, but that now—because he is a bit closer to what is, and is turned toward things that are more—he sees more correctly? And in particular, if we pointed to each of the things passing by and compelled him to answer what each of them is, don’t you think he would be puzzled and believe that the things he saw earlier were more truly real than the ones he was being shown?        (515c-515d)

This demonstrates the difficulty that comes with growing in one’s knowledge. It’s painful and your mind has to adjust to the vast amount of things now coming into it. It is confusing to learn new things that are different than what you previously believed and it can be hard to accept that the way you thought about things before was wrong. In the early stages because it is so difficult, one might even try to run back to his old ways of thinking simply because he is used to it and taking in the new information is distressing and bewildering, however, as the one learning continues in the undertaking, things start to change. At first he is angry and pained and unable to see the truly real things (516a), but as his eyes begin to adjust and he starts genuinely seeing and taking in the world he never knew before, his attitude changes along with his perspective. He needs time to get adjusted (516a), but by the end of the process, he “would count himself happy for the change and pity the others” (516c). And then, when he looks back at the existence he left behind and thinks about the other people who never left the cave, he considers himself much better off and would prefer to “go through any sufferings, rather than share their beliefs and live as they do” (516d). This process displays the power that education can have on an individual and the dramatic effects that can transpire in one’s life when he persists in pursuing the light of truth despite the incredibly arduous experiences he must go through to reach it.

    Many interpretations have been made of this anecdote, but the original intent of this story, as stated by Socrates, was to serve as an imagined incidence that is comparable to the effects of education so that the hearers could more thoroughly examine the concept of learning and better appreciate its worth. The allegory of the cave is one of Plato’s most famous writings and it exists as a very insightful dive into the nature of epiphanies and the various ordeals that accompany those who experience them. It is a difficult journey to leave behind a long-held set of beliefs to pursue the light of knowledge, and sometimes in the middle of the exploit we may wish to return to our former ways because of the pain and confusion we are experiencing, but if we are genuinely seeking the truth and learning what is real, then by the time we can truly see what is honestly around us, we will count ourselves happy for the change and pity those who never took the steps to learn. According to Socrates, the end result of this process of education is people who have gazed at “divine things” (517d) and whose “souls are always eager to spend their time above” (517c). When we decide to make the treacherous trek from darkness into light, we are coming to see things the way they truly are, and the profound effect the truth has on our lives is astounding. In the end, it all comes down to a choice we have in front of us. Do we continue living with the shadows, or do we choose to live with the light?