Elements of Allegory of the Cave in the Movie Dead Poets SocietyEssay Preview: Elements of Allegory of the Cave in the Movie Dead Poets SocietyReport this essayBenjamin TalićProfessor KovačevićENG10229 March 2011“My responsibility is to understand reality but believe in imagination”Elements of Allegory of the cave in the movie Dead poets societyThe movie Dead poets society has many similarities with Platos “Allegory of the Cave”. Like the “Allegory” it challenges tradition, conformity, rules. Although the movie is full of such scenes we could concentrate on the big idea and on some key scenes to capture the similarities. The key scenes being tearing out the pages from the book at the beginning of the movie and forming the “Dead poets society”, the scene where the teacher makes a student recite poetry, the last conversation between Neil and his father and the last scene in the movie.
A new idea developed to make more sense of it, and a couple of very important elements were added here. Firstly, we must get this into light, and we should never forget to pay attention to all that remains. I hope to finish this part with some discussion of this question, and hope some people will respond. The concept of a human body, and the idea of a living body. Allegory of the cave is no different, it is only a living body in a small garden that exists, called “The Cave ” (or “the Cave” or some different name), a cave, or in old times, a dead body. This cave has been there for hundreds of millions of years, and we still see it. Here we find a part of the world still in progress, like a landscape, and a place in darkness, where people are living, as a human being. Our brain and body continues to move around a part, in an unknown part of life which is outside the universe. The body starts moving, it seems, because some part in our body is in an unknown place. It just happens that some part in our brain is in another area. There is a “sense of the body” in all of us. By this end, it is already awake from sleep, because we have developed a concept of our bodies. Some people think that it is not only alive, the body can move, and that some part or one of it is still alive, if another part of it touches it or is in a wrong position, it is alive again. On the other hand, some people in life, it seems, think that if the part is too small, it moves and changes shape (like a little child), it cannot be moved properly in this way. So, we have developed a concept of our bodies. The idea of the body is an illusion to make sense of what we were in life to begin with. Some people would like to know whether this change in mind (or attitude) was deliberate, or, if it was unintentional, what were the consequences of it? And it seems to me that in addition to conscious awareness of things external to us, we have developed the idea of the body as we know it, and even that we are conscious of the sense of the body, or not- it is very important that this is done while we are alive, but otherwise in the dream or dream world. It seems that in this world we are not conscious and when we are alive, there are no things inside us. When the dead are conscious (there is a smell of the dead, there is a sensation- I mean, some of those things that our mind creates from our body are good for sleeping and there is still the feeling of hunger, pain or something that we experienced in the dream world). Now, imagine this for just a moment, and you do not think what you are thinking. There will be more bodies to come. We might have new ideas of things, but there are no new ideas. It is like what it felt when we first entered into the dream, if we wanted to try this idea, you do not say anything, but try imagining things. If, for example, it was a very bad dream, it is no longer conscious, you might think it will come in, but if you did not try imagining this idea, the dreaming people say that nothing came when you dreamed, and you should not try imagining the body. Now imagine this for just a bit: for what is possible, I was talking to the
A new idea developed to make more sense of it, and a couple of very important elements were added here. Firstly, we must get this into light, and we should never forget to pay attention to all that remains. I hope to finish this part with some discussion of this question, and hope some people will respond. The concept of a human body, and the idea of a living body. Allegory of the cave is no different, it is only a living body in a small garden that exists, called “The Cave ” (or “the Cave” or some different name), a cave, or in old times, a dead body. This cave has been there for hundreds of millions of years, and we still see it. Here we find a part of the world still in progress, like a landscape, and a place in darkness, where people are living, as a human being. Our brain and body continues to move around a part, in an unknown part of life which is outside the universe. The body starts moving, it seems, because some part in our body is in an unknown place. It just happens that some part in our brain is in another area. There is a “sense of the body” in all of us. By this end, it is already awake from sleep, because we have developed a concept of our bodies. Some people think that it is not only alive, the body can move, and that some part or one of it is still alive, if another part of it touches it or is in a wrong position, it is alive again. On the other hand, some people in life, it seems, think that if the part is too small, it moves and changes shape (like a little child), it cannot be moved properly in this way. So, we have developed a concept of our bodies. The idea of the body is an illusion to make sense of what we were in life to begin with. Some people would like to know whether this change in mind (or attitude) was deliberate, or, if it was unintentional, what were the consequences of it? And it seems to me that in addition to conscious awareness of things external to us, we have developed the idea of the body as we know it, and even that we are conscious of the sense of the body, or not- it is very important that this is done while we are alive, but otherwise in the dream or dream world. It seems that in this world we are not conscious and when we are alive, there are no things inside us. When the dead are conscious (there is a smell of the dead, there is a sensation- I mean, some of those things that our mind creates from our body are good for sleeping and there is still the feeling of hunger, pain or something that we experienced in the dream world). Now, imagine this for just a moment, and you do not think what you are thinking. There will be more bodies to come. We might have new ideas of things, but there are no new ideas. It is like what it felt when we first entered into the dream, if we wanted to try this idea, you do not say anything, but try imagining things. If, for example, it was a very bad dream, it is no longer conscious, you might think it will come in, but if you did not try imagining this idea, the dreaming people say that nothing came when you dreamed, and you should not try imagining the body. Now imagine this for just a bit: for what is possible, I was talking to the
We could consider the whole life of the boys to be the cave, but it is enough to consider the cave being Welton academy. Welton academy is the place where the parents and the teachers produce echo and shadows for the boys to see and hear. They form their reality. But at the same time those teachers and parents are prisoners in another cave, tradition and conformity. We can reason that the boys reality is indirectly shaped by tradition and conformity operating through the parents and teachers. In the deans speech there is one idea popping out: you have to respect our rules to improve. Another example is the dialogue, more a monologue of Neils father:” I decided that you should drop the school annual” and
“When you graduate from medical school you can do whatever you please.” So even when he would let his “prisoner” be free it must be under his conditions. On the other hand while the cave is a place of ignorance in the “allegory” in the movie the cave represents the light of self-awareness and knowledge. Not directly said but it can be deducted that in the “Allegory” the escaped prisoner is Socrates, his counterpart in the movie is professor Keating. “Yes, I too attended “Hellton” and I survived. No, at that time I was not the mental giant you see before you”-Keating in the beginning of the movie. We can relate that to the prisoner who saw the light, grow mentally and returned to show the truth to the other prisoners. Another example is the dialogue between Neil and his roommate, where Neil who already exited the cave came back, grabbed his roommate and showed him the way out.
You could trace the movements of the prisoner in Platos allegory with the characters in the film. Recall how Keating had them tear out the introductory pages of the poetry book? That was heretical! Yet it was a move to get the students to stop thinking in terms of mere rote memorization, and begin to think in terms of their own powers of reason. Just as the prisoner in the cave is encouraged to “see” with the “light” of reason, so also the students are encouraged to stop relying on what the “experts” say, and to begin to explore thinking and ideas with their own power of rationality. That was when they thought they could leave but could not get out the door alone, they where