Similarities Between The Matrix And The Allegory Of The Cave

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The Truth about Reality There are many similarities between The Allegory of the Cave by Plato and The Matrix, a 1999 science fiction and action film written by The Wachowski Brothers. In the movie the Matrix and in the cave, the prisoners and Neo do not get a sense of what reality really is. They both revolve around one same question, what is the truth about their world? The prisoners only understand what they see in the shadows, which represents objects. Since the prisoners have never left the cave and haven’t seen what the world truly is, they only believe that the shadows are the real objects. As Socrates said, “To them, the truth would be literally nothing but the shadow of the images.” (Plato 1) This same concept follows The Matrix. In the beginning of the movie, Neo thought that the world was real, but…show more content…
If he chooses the blue pill he will forget everything about the matrix and have a normal life again. But if he chooses the red one, it will show him what the matrix really is. So if he decides to choose the red pill, he is warned that once he knows the truth about the reality of his world and he will not be able to return back to his normal life. This is like the Allegory of the Cave because once the prisoner escapes the cave he is shocked at what he discovers about the Intellectual World. Plato’s prisoner comes to realize that the shadows he was looking at are not the truth. The prisoner begins to open his eyes and sees that this new world is real, “what he saw before was an illusion”, but that now when the prisoner is approaching nearer to the new intellectual world, “his eyes are turned towards more real existence”, he has a clearer vision (Plato 2). This shows that Neo now sees what the truth really is of his world and that the “shadows” on the wall are lies. Both characters from each story must ask themselves what is real and accept this new knowledge of their new
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