The Divided Line & the Sun
The world of the sun represents the good and the path to right. There is line between the tangible objects and intangible thoughts and ideas. The sun, or light, helps to bring to light the highest form of truth and the best man can be.
Allegory of the Cave
The allegory of the cave illustrates a man who first lives in ignorance and sin, and then comes to the light and can see what is the right thing to do and how things actually fit together. However, he goes back to ignorance and the dark because it is what he knows. In the cave, it is dark and the man must learn to know things by how they are defined by the shadows around it. The man is a sort of prisoner to the cave and to the wood, stone, and people in it. What the man perceives to be truth is nothing "more than the shadows of the manufactured objects" (822). This corresponds to someone living according to false truths; he knows only what his environment allows him to know and understand. When the man comes out into the light, he can see the objects as they relate to light and it is hard to understand for him since he is used to seeing shadows. The sun would blind him, as the truth would hurt to someone who had lived all his life according to the opposite truth. He would have to give up his beliefs and way of life to understand fully the actual truth. Socrates draw the conclusion that living in a a manufactured life is not worth living when confronted with know a deeper, more abstract truth, although it is easier to live that manufactured life. This shown when the man chooses to return to the cave and shadows since it is what he knows best.
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