"What is the Matrix? The Matrix is the world they pull over your eyes" (Matrix 1999). Plato's ?allegory of the cave' has much in common with the themes and ideas portrayed in The Matrix. The allegory of the cave is an analogy for the human condition. Plato's philosopher asks us to imagine slaves chained so as to not allow them to turn around. There is a fire lit in the entrance at the far end of the cave. There is a wall behind the slaves, which divides them and the puppet-handlers. The puppet handlers walk back and forth carrying artefacts include models of humans and animals while some talk and other don't. They can only see the shadows of the artefacts on the cave wall in front of them and would assume that they were real. He then asks us to imagine if one of the slaves were freed, and explained to that his past life had no substance. How he would first be dazzled by the firelight, and then would only be able to see reflections of light before eventually be able to look upon the sun itself, although it would pain him. Finally the philosopher asks us to imagine how the slave would cope if he went back to the cave, and sat back down. How the other slaves would mock him saying that he came back down without his eyes.
Plato's allegory philosophizes what would it be like if your world is just an illusion. He questions if these slaves were subjected to nothing but the shadows of reality from as long as they can remember how could they tell the difference between the world they experience inside the cave and the real world. In this way being inside Plato's cave is like being inside the matrix. The people inside the matrix are surrounded by a reality that unknown to them is created. The notion of reality is explored in both texts in very similar ways. They both ...