Platos Allegory of a Cave, Wachowskis Matrix, and Marge Piercys Woman on the Edge of Time :: Argumentative Persuasive Papers

Plato's Allegory of a Cave, Wachowski's Matrix, and Marge Piercy's Woman on the Edge of Time Plato's Allegory of a Cave is a story about prisoners that are chained underground, who can not see anything except for shadows caste on a wall by a fire. The only thing that these prisoners can see is the shadows of people. Eventually, one of the prisoners breaks free of the chain and ventures out into the real world. In the real world the freed prisoner discovers that the shadows in the cave are created from light diverge off people. He recognizes there is a whole new world filled with light. The freed prisoner is very confused and blinded by the light so he decides to return to the cave. When the prisoner returns to the cave, he shares what he saw in the real world with the other prisoners. The remaining prisoners treat the freed prisoner like he is crazy and they tell the freed prisoner that the real world does not exist. The prisoners in the cave do not believe in the real world because the cave is all that they know exists. Platos story is a close parallel to the film The Matrix and Marge Piercys Woman on the Edge of Time. Platos theory suggests that masses should be silenced in order to discourage desire because desire leads people to be unjust. Thus, equilibrium is needed to create peace and prevent chaos between two powerful worlds. The parallel of Platos theory can be seen in Marge Piercys Woman on the Edge of Time. The novel is about a chosen person, Connie, and her journey to keep peace between the machine world and the human world. Connie has special communicating powers, in which she is able to contact two completely different future worlds. The first world is a total utopia where Connie communicates with Luciente. The utopian world is a very high spirited, trustworthy, healthy community which is extremely peaceful and relies very little on technology. The world in a dysutopian, is completely controlled by computers, and humans are slave-like to cyborgs. This world is very dirty and the world wa s completely trashed. Connie lives in the present, where the worlds future is threaten by complete control by machines or a world with no technology. Like the prisoner in Platos story, Connie is shunned by society and put in a mental hospital.