Speaker: The speaker in the text is Socrates having a dialogue with Plato’s brother Glaucon about the allegory. Socrates was an ancient Greek philosopher who died in 399 BC who was criticized for his ways of thinking and eventually was sentenced to death for inflicting his views on the public.

Purpose: The purpose of the allegory was to show how people who have lived their lives under certain lies, (The shadows on the wall of the cave) can chose to accept the truth when it is offered to them (The world outside of the cave/ the sun) or deny the truth and go back to their delusion where they feel safe.

Audience: “Allegory of the Cave” is the seventh book out of 10 in Plato’s “The Republic”. This book was targeted towards the wealthy and ruling class. This is because literacy was not very widespread at the time, meaning that the rich had easier access to the education required to understand Plato’s writings.

Context: “The Republic” was written around 375 BC, around this time is when Plato founded an academy outside of Athens. At the same time there were a lot of wars and battles being fought.

Exigence: Plato’s inner drive to create the “Allegory of the Cave” came from what he was experiencing in his day-to-day life as a philosopher in Athens during his time. The allegory is meant to represent the struggle that he goes through when he is trying to spread the truth to people. To put it into the context of the story, Plato was the prisoner who escaped from the fire in the cave and saw the word for what it truly was even if his eyes had to adjust to its brightness. The general population were the ones who were still in the cave, most wanting to deny what Plato was trying to tell them and stay living in their false truths.

Choices: X

Appeals: One of the major appeals of this text is that it challenges the readers beliefs and shows them how to look at life from a unique perspective, while raising interesting questions about the world we live in.

Tone: The tone of the text is soft, as it is trying to show whoever is reading the views that Plato had on the world and its people. Plato is not forcing these ideas onto anyone, rather he is just putting them out there in the form of this allegory.