In the Plato's allegory of the cave he gives many symbols throughout his whole story. He uses the cave, shadows, prisoners, and light as symbols throughout the story to try to make a point. And he tries to make a point through using those symbols in the story. The cave represents what place the people are at, and it is the place of no knowledge and of no enlightenment. It is a place where people are trapped but do not which to leave. The cave is a place where they are prisoners yet believe that they are free. The cave is a place where they are burden by their own thoughts and ideas. .
Another symbol in the story is the shadows. The shadows is what keeps the people in the cave it makes them not want to go out and gain knowledge and discover new and more exciting things. It keeps the fear in them and binds them to there ways. The shadow is the wall that keeps them from discovering what's on the outside of the cave. It is there biggest fear and their cage for keeping them bound in the cave. The next symbol would be the prisoners; now the prisoners could be any number of things. First the prisoners could be the world's population and all people that dwell in it. Or it could be the people of Athens of that time or the people of Greece. Pretty much what it represents is a group of people who are afraid to discover something new because they are afraid of change.
They are bound to their ways because that's really all they now how to do. The prisoners are a group of people that fear what they do not know and don't want to be changed by anyone or anything. The light represents what true enlightenment really is and what it means to get wisdom. It is education and it is being different from another, not really being the same as anyone else but sort of developing your own identity. It's a person .
standing up and telling everyone else and showing people that they"re not afraid to be diverse.