Essay Comparing A Rose For Emily And The Myth Of The Cave
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A Rose for Emily and The Myth of the Cave
Initially, one would proclaim that “A Rose for Emily” and “The Myth of the Cave” are two distinct works that do not have anything in common. However, the authors illustrate very similar content. In Plato’s work the author makes reference to a cave, which is symbolic of the ignorance and isolation encompassed in humanity. There are prisoners who live in the cave and have no desire to leave, as they prefer to live in their fake reality rather than face the complexity of the real world. There is only one character with a desire to leave his environment, but upon his exit he is blinded by the light. However, he continues his journey and explores the outside. He is pleased with all that he has seen, and returns to the cave to tell the others of the beauty he has found outside the cave walls. Similarly, in Faulkner’s story, Miss Emily is oppressed her entire life. She is forced to…show more content… Emily’s house is her prison; she was kept locked up her entire life by her father who never let her interact with regular people in town. As a result, she was completely ignorant of the world outside of the confines of her home. For example, there is an instance in which Emily refused to pay taxes because Colonel Sartoris, who was the former mayor of the town, excused her from paying taxes. However, that man had been dead for almost ten years, but she refused to come to terms with that. In a similar fashion, the cave represents a prison, and similar to Emily the prisoners don’t know anything about the real world. Therefore, they speculate that the shadows that they see are representations of reality, and consequently they refuse to believe in anything else. In both tales, the characters who are confined to a secluded environment unaware of true reality decide to create their own