Plato's Allegory of the Cave

1. According to Socrates, what does the Allegory of the Cave represent?
- The Allegory of the Cave represents what we believe is our reality and when we are taken out of what we know and what is our reality we are confused and lost.




2. What are the key elements in the imagery used in the allegory?
- The darkness is used to represent the reality in which the prisoners live in while the light represents the unknown world they have been deprived of. 




3. What are some things the allegory suggests about the process of enlightenment or education?
- I believe the allegory suggests that by stepping out of your comfort zone and doing something different we can learn new things.





 
4. What do the imagery of "shackles" and the "cave" suggest about the perspective of the cave dwellers or prisoners?
- The shackles and the cave represent the walls and restraints that confide people. The shackles are restricting the movement of the prisoners so they can only see what is right in front of them. The cave is like their comfort zone it is all they know and they never leave it.




5. In society today or in your own life, what sorts of things shackle the mind?
- I believe that people are the shackles to your mind. When you have a large amount of people telling you that you can't do something at some point you are going to believe that you can't do it and you are going to give up.



6. Compare the perspective of the freed prisoner with the cave prisoners?
- Unlike the cave prisoners, the freed prisoner is able to see things the cave prisoners can't like the sun. This leads him into the world of imagination as he is able to imagine what other things may be out in the world. Before the freed prisoner escaped, he would never have imagined something so bright like the sun existed. The cave prisoners still believe in only the shadows because it is the only thing they have ever known.  


7. According to the allegory, lack of clarity or intellectual confusion can occur in two distinct ways or contexts. What are they?
-Lack of clarity can occur when one simply doesn't know of any other possibilities. If someone is taught one thing all their lives and someone suddenly tells them they are wrong or there are other possibilities, how could they have known that in the first place? Intellectual confusion can occur when you are trying to explain something to someone they didn't even know existed. 




 8. According to the allegory, how do cave prisoners get free? What does this suggest about intellectual freedom?
- The cave prisoners can get free if they simply just try to escape. This tells us that in order to do something new you need to step out of your comfort zone. Though it may be scary at first, that one decision can hold a million different  opportunities. 




9. The allegory presupposes that there is a distinction between appearances and reality. Do you agree? Why or why not?
- I agree with this statement. In the allegory, the cave prisoners only saw the appearances of the shadows on the walls. In reality, those shadows were different things like animals and people. 




10. If Socrates is incorrect in his assumption that there is a distinction between reality and appearances, what are the two alternative metaphysical assumptions?
- One assumption could be that everything you see is indeed what it appears be and nothing else. Another assumption could be that all the things you know of are the only things that exist in the world.

We Hang Together

• Many schools believe that collaboration is cheating.
• Communication and trust play an important role in collaboration
• companies that let there employees work together and show the human side of the company will usually have more trust
• medieval guilds are an example of relationships with trust and personal bonds
• Survival of the fittest is about being the most adaptable
• Interdependence requires that one party do for the other and vice versa
• To gain interdependence you must sacrifice a sense of community or teamwork

Sonnet Remix

Sonnet to Death by Heath Bailey

Cold Death, who lays an icy hand on all
The children of the Two who fell from grace,
Boast not — thy victory's scope is sliver-small
And but a moment mars the human race.
Although the grave, in season, houses bones,
And Age, thy minion, plays me like a pawn,
Though for a day thou rulest, 'neath the stones,
Thy grip, though fearful, thee will fail ere dawn.
For in these realms of Love thou canst not reign:
The widow's faith, the kinship in a home,
And lover's vows. Thy frightenings are in vain,
For these thou hast not strength to overcome.
What then if for a moment Death bring grief?
From Death, Love plunders Life, a welcome thief.

If I Die Young by The Band Perry

This music video is as you can tell about death coming to young. The sonnet immediately made this song come to mind, when I listen to it I can hear the pain in the words that are being sung. I had the same reaction with the sonnet. The line in the song "the sharp knife of a short life" and the line in the sonnet "Cold Death, who lays an icy hand on all" are both powerful phrases that make me realize how intensely serious death is and how it is inescapable.

 

Picture Collage of meaningful images

 

This song is a about a young couple that is in love and are newly married and right after the wedding the husband goes off to war. (foreshadowing tells us that in most country songs the husband will not be coming back.) The young widow is trying to deal with the death of her new husband and trying to figure out her life without her husband.

 

Sonnet Analysis #1

Sonnets

Sonnetto- little song or sound in Italian

There are two types of sonnets both composed of 14 lines

Petrarch/Italian

• Composed of an octet (8 lines) and a sextet (6 lines)

Shakespearean

• Composed of three quatrains (4 lines) and one couplet (2 lines)
• the last two words in each line of the couplet rhyme making it easy to identify as Shakespearean

A Poetic Inquiry

Sonnet to Death by Heath Bailey

Cold Death, who lays an icy hand on all
The children of the Two who fell from grace,
Boast not — thy victory's scope is sliver-small
And but a moment mars the human race.
Although the grave, in season, houses bones,
And Age, thy minion, plays me like a pawn,
Though for a day thou rulest, 'neath the stones,
Thy grip, though fearful, thee will fail ere dawn.
For in these realms of Love thou canst not reign:
The widow's faith, the kinship in a home,
And lover's vows. Thy frightenings are in vain,
For these thou hast not strength to overcome.
What then if for a moment Death bring grief?
From Death, Love plunders Life, a welcome thief.

 

The sonnet I chose does not relate to my Big question but I found this one very interesting and it relates to the times our country is facing with death coming to soon in peoples lives.

 

Hamlet Essay Remix

http://youtu.be/W9VZp7IFfXQ
This is the video of the last scene. Where almost every character dies.

This picture represents the weight I believe one would feel on their shoulders after they have murdered someone.

The twists resembles how the characters relationships with each other were insanely crazy and were completely messed up.

Hamlet Essay

Rachel Nolan

Fourth Period  

November 4, 2013

Hamlet and Hamlet

Performative Utterance is something that makes Hamlet the play make sense to me.  Hamlet was a twisted play that particularly made me think of people’s actions and how they stick with you forever. Hamlet’s character spoke in ways that made self-overhearing relevant in the play.

            Through out Hamlet the characters would talk about different plans but did not always carry them out but on the other hand a lot of plans were executed during the play. Performative Utterance is a way of speaking but not always doing. This made it easier for me to understand actions in the play. The way that the characters in Hamlet spoke made me think about how important it is to pre filter your words before you say them. Small conversations and small action ended with people dead. That has to stick with people for a long time, killing a person is not a small act that goes away that is a weight that is almost never lifted off ones shoulders. The way Hamlet speaks constitutes action in the way he goes so deep into explanation and feeling. His emotion breaks through the text and becomes evident and makes the words speak in more ways than one. Hamlet is able to shit the mood of the play, which is exactly who is character is he is able to act on way and then immediately switch back to being sane. In doing this he is able to completely alter the plot, with just words and small actions he drives Claudius mad trying to figure him out.

Self-overhearing is a concept that personally freaks me out but is so true. While Hamlet speaks he can hear is plans out loud and it makes him wonder if they are good or not. This happens to us all the time. Things always sound better in our heads that they do when we say them aloud to other people. It also helps us understands and memorize things better. The more I hear something said the better I understand it, repetition makes me think more and more about it making it easier for me to wrap my head around. When I was trying to memorize “To be, or not to be” hearing myself say it out loud made it stick with me and made the memorization process easier for me.

            Hamlet is a play that will be a classic forever. The use of performative utterance makes it easier for the reader to understand why Hamlet and the other characters do and say the things they do. This play has themes that are meant to teach and to entertain at the same time. Backstabbing, death and love are all parts of Hamlet that make is so unforgettable