While describing the story, Plato asks Socrates to envision an underground cave inhabited by prisoners, who have been in the cave from their childhood with their legs and necks shackled by chains, so that the movement of their face is restricted, and they can see nothing but the wall in front of them. This restricted movement limits their visibility only to the wall, thus circumscribing the scope of any encounter beyond it. There is an enormous fire blazing at a distance, above and behind the prisoners, and between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised walkway meant for objects to pass. The shadows of all sorts of objects (animal, jar or tree), fall directly on the wall. Thus providing the sole view for the prisoners, and say there was an echo/voices that came from the wall because of the puppeteer, the prisoners would perceive it to be the voices of those passing shadows. Hence, the only way for the prisoners to get acquainted with their surroundings is to decipher or interpret the shadows and consider them to be a part of the real world. They start naming each and every object, and amongst themselves declare the quickest one to observe the passing shadows and point out which followed after or before or were together as the winner, with intellectual knowledge and ability.
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