The Matrix

The movie the Matrix , directed by Andrew and Lana Wachowski, and the dialogue, The Allegory of the Cave, written by Plato, both have a large selection of connections and similarities with each other. The Allegory of the cave talks about a fairly simple story of how someone discovers the truth. The Matrix is a more complex and action filled description of how someone finds the truth. Both of the works, The Matrix and the Allegory of the Cave, clearly have a large focus on the role of truth in human life and how controlling forces struggle to control people while being truthful.

Governments, systems, or any other ruling powers that attempt to control people will sometimes manipulate what is real and truthful in order to gain a better and more stable control over those whom they wish to control. In the Allegory of the Cave a fake world is created by a person who shows a puppet or figure over a wall. The shadow on the wall makes the prisoners believe that the shadow is real. The person showing the figures is able to actually control the people's beliefs by making them thing that the dark spot on the wall is a real thing and not just a shadow. In the Matrix a fake world is created where people believe that they are in the real world

when in reality they are in pods being used as batteries and a computer system makes them think that they are in the real world. The two controlling forces, robots from The Matrix, and the puppeteer from The Allegory of the Cave, hereafter known as the Allegory, create a false world and are able to control the people much easier than if they were to try to control them in the real world.

Although in both works a fake world is created to easier control the people, the controlling forces still need another way to keep the people in line. These controlling forces will usually be able to bend the rules of the system they are in and they know more about in order to better control it. The agents in the Matrix can run up walls and dodge bullets so that they are almost invincible. In the Allegory the puppeteer uses a made up world of shadows so that the people won't be able to ever know what is actually real. The chains keep the prisoners from escaping and knowing the truth. Both of these systems of control use fake worlds and control methods because letting the people know the truth and trying to keep them under control is much more complicated than making a false world.

Even though numerous control methods are present in both The Allegory and The Matrix, some people are still able to find the truth. In The Allegory, one of the prisoners is dragged to the exit of the cave. He then gets up and walks out into the real world. But, when he walks out he is blinded by the sun and it takes him a while to adjust to it. Realistically it would make sense that the prisoner would be blinded because he would have been in the dark his whole life and walking into the sun would take a while to adjust to. But figuratively in this part of The Allegory the sun represents the truth, and it would make sense that the prisoner would be blinded because at that moment he realizes that his whole life has been a lie. All of the new information that he would be seeing would be incredibly overwhelming. The same idea is present when Morpheus gives neo the chance to know the real world. Neo can either take one pill and wake up the next morning and not remember what happened, or he can take the other pill and know the truth. This is just like the unchaining of the prisoner. Neo wants Morpheus to tell him what the matrix is before he takes the pill but then Morpheus says, "unfortunately no one can be told what the matrix is, you have to see it for yourself." This is just one example of the scene in the Allegory of walking out of the cave.

In The Matrix Neo is brought into the real world in a much more dramatic way than the prisoner was. When he gets into the real world and is told that his whole life has been fake and that he is now actually in the real world he is in complete disbelief. This is just like the prisoner being blinded by the sun. When neo accepts that the world he is in now is the real world he has to adjust to it. Morpheus teaches Neo how to bend the rules of gravity while in the matrix, and Neo must learn many other things. This is an example of how the prisoner must slowly adjust to the sun, just as Neo slowly learns new things.

In both works there is something special about the people who find the truth. In the Allegory the man who journeys outside of the cave was chosen to be unchained while all of the other prisoners were not. In the Matrix neo is believed to be "the one", or the person who can manipulate the matrix and even stop it. While Neo is in the real world Morpheus takes neo into the matrix to see an oracle. The oracle is supposed to be able to know people's