The Allegory Of The Cave: “Batman” And The Republic

4 Pages 998 Words

“Out of the darkness comes the light”, Plato and Tim Burton explore this very popular cliché in The Republic and in “Batman”. The societies in both stories exist in a tragic state of ignorance. In The Republic, the ignorant state is forced upon the people through its leadership by keeping them in the darkness of the cave. Contrasting the society in “Batman” where the people choose to live in darkness and are not bind by a physical cave. However, the physical cave in “Batman” represents a place of knowledge. Batman is able to escape from the world of ignorance in which he lives into the cave of enlightenment. In The Republic the cave represents a state of ignorance for the people of the society, whereas in “Batman” the cave represents a state of extreme intelligence for Batman.
In The Republic, Plato describes the following scenario: A group of people has lived in a deep cave since birth, never seeing any daylight at all. These people are bound in such a way that they cannot look to either side or behind them, but only straight ahead. Behind them is a fire, and behind the fire is a partial wall. On top of the wall are various statues, which are manipulated by another group of people, laying out of sight. Because of the fire, the statues cast shadows on the wall that the prisoners are facing. The prisoners watch the stories that these shadows play out, and because this is all they can ever see, they believe that these shadows are the real things in the world. When they talk to one another about “men,” “women,” “trees,” “horses,” and so on, they refer only to these shadows.
Here, the cave represents an oppressive society that promotes ignorance amongst its people. The people of the society are oblivious of the happenings of the outside world. They are led to believe that the occurrences in the cave are true. The exaggerated images projected on the cave’s walls are the prisoners�...