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Teresa Wineland
Professor Lee Hobbs
American Literature
30 April 2008

Stepping Out of the Shadows
The Enlightenment of Women in “A Jury of Her Peers”

An intermingling of personalities is anticipated in any relationship between a man and woman, and within these characteristics is dominance. One individual in a relationship takes on the dominant role or controls the issues within the relationship. In particular conditions, such as abusive relationships, a dominant individual can often have much influence over the other so much so that the spouse conjures a false persona to please the abuser or dominant spouse. For instance, if the dominant spouse is a man and the abused spouse is a woman, the woman may live life with the false persona she has created. All the while she is putting her true opinions and beliefs aside, and assuming the values and morals of the man. In time, the woman will have lost sight of who she truly is and what she truly believes in. She will be a mere reflection of her dominant partner.
If this particular woman’s values and beliefs were put to the test, she would have a difficult time deciding what her true and real values and beliefs are. Ultimately, she would be determining her reality, deciding what is true and what is untrue. Her circumstances are similar to the prisoners in Plato’s “The Allegory of the Cave”, in Book VII of The Republic. The prisoners believe that the truth is what has been presented to them during their existence in the cave. When the freed prisoner, who has ventured out of the cave, returns to tell them that their reality is a lie, they are in disbelief. It is easier to continue to believe what they have always been shown, just as it is easier for the abused woman to remain her husband’s follower. Both of these places are retreats of safety and comfort, whether literal or symbolic. However, venturing out in the unknown, though frightening, may prove to be the ultimate enlightenment to change their circumstances.
A perfect example of this is offered in Susan Glaspell’s “A Jury of Her Peers”, when Mrs. Peters, a dedicated and dutiful Sheriff’s wife is forced to look past her husband’s badge and test her true feelings. Mrs. Peters is portrayed as a woman who stands by her husband and acts in his best interest, carrying a high regard for him and her duties as his wife. She represents a woman who puts her true opinions and values aside in order to abide by her husband’s beliefs and the law.
However, Mrs. Peters is put in a precarious situation when her heart and womanly compassion are pulled by certain circumstances presented to her. When Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale discover Minnie Foster’s deceased songbird wrapped elegantly in a beautiful box, they begin to mend together a series of events leading to Mr. Wright’s murder. The women have what seems like only moments to decide Minnie’s fate when the men approach the house, knowing all the while that this evidence would surely convict her of the murder.
Surprisingly, Mrs. Peters conceals the evidence in her coat pocket, hiding it from her husband and the town attorney, doing so without hesitation. Perhaps Mrs. Peters could empathize with Minnie Foster, knowing what it is like to live a life as your husband’s property. Mrs. Peters, if only for that moment, abandoned her persona and judged the situation, not as a Sheriff’s wife, but as a woman with respect for what another had possibly endured.
Here, Mrs. Peters is like the individual who was freed in “The Allegory of the Cave”. The freed prisoner was forced to see something that would change his perspective completely. Mrs. Peters was forced from her own symbolic cave of programmed reactions into a world where the truth became what she made it. The physical pain the freed prisoner felt when he looked upon the fire and the sun for the first time is similar to the emotional pain and anguish that Mrs. Peters must have felt by leaving her duties behind and turning her back on her husband.
When Susan Glaspell wrote “A Jury of Her Peers”, which was a short version of her play Trifles, she based the story upon an actual homicide case from December 1, 1900 in Indianola, Iowa (“Justifiable”). The man who was murdered, John Hossack, was believed to have been abusive to his wife, which led her to murder him in his sleep. Since Glaspell based her story on these events, the reader can assume that Mr. Wright is a representation of John Hossack, and was therefore abusive to Minnie Foster.
Psychologically, Minnie was a people-pleaser and easily manipulated and influenced by her husband and his dominant nature. Since she lived so far from the rest of the community, she had no close friends or relatives to confide in on a regular basis. Therefore, leaving Minnie little choice but to suppress her feelings and emotions and keep the same buried deep within her, carrying that great burden daily and adding regularly to the heap.
She probably didn’t have much interest in life and merely accepted her unhappy situation knowing that she had nowhere else to go. During the time period, women who talked negatively of their husbands were frowned upon (“Justifiable”). Therefore, Minnie probably kept quiet to keep from causing trouble.
At some point, Minnie got a songbird and made a deep connection with this lovely animal, finally bringing life and happiness into her home. The bird must have been an annoyance to Mr. Wright singing all day long and stealing all of Minnie’s attention and devotion. Mr. Wright’s annoyance and possible jealously led him to kill the songbird.
Upon the bird’s death, Minnie, who had lost the only friend she had and the only thing that brought her joy, became plagued with anger. Since she had previously suppressed all of her sadness and hurt, she had much anger brewing inside her. Her suppressed feelings were forced up into an overflow of uncontrollable feelings and unmanageable thoughts. This is what led Minnie to murder her husband in his sleep. He took her life and she took his in return.
Mr. Wright must have felt quite content in knowing that he had much control over his wife and took pleasure in dominating her. He would never have thought that his wife would seek revenge for his actions or suspected that she would actually be successful.
Sometimes what we believe to be true is actually not the truth at all. Socrates, in “The Allegory of the Cave” states that “the truth would be nothing but the shadows of the images.” When in actuality, stepping out of the cave proves that the shadows are not the true reality and that the image only causes the shadow, therefore the image is the real reality.
Mr. Wright’s belief that he could impose upon Minnie any form of abuse or cruelty represents the shadow. Mr. Wright represents the prisoner believing that the shadow is reality. Minnie, therefore, represents the actual image, the reality, whereas she broke free of her cave by proving the shadow wrong.
In addition, Minnie became comfortable with her unpleasant life in a sense because it was all that she knew and had. Similarly, the individuals in the cave were comfortable with the belief that the shadows were reality because that is all they knew. Leaving the cave was a fearful and unplanned experience, just as the murder of Minnie’s husband was fearful and unforeseen terrain.
It is not surprising that Minnie would have felt so betrayed by her husband for killing the songbird and that she would have hurt him from an overwhelming flow of uncontrollable emotion. She experienced great trauma forcing her to have a strong outburst of anger in retaliation. The combination of this anger and the low self-worth that Minnie probably acquired from the years of abuse, combined with the loss of her songbird and her depression could have easily forced her to lose control of her emotions and lose sight of right and wrong.
In “A Jury of Her Peers” it is no secret that the men have an unvarying impression of the women. They make a comment about the women worrying over trifles and that the women would never even know evidence if they found it. The men speak condescendingly to the women throughout the story as if the business of a homicide investigation is far beyond their intellectual reach.
Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale, however, prove the men wrong by not only discovering evidence but by making a logical conclusion of the events that led up to the murder. They take their intellect one step further by deciding to conceal the evidence from the men, knowing that it would surely convict Minnie Foster of her husband’s murder.
The men, too quick to judge the intellectual capacity of their spouses, make them similar to the individuals in the cave choosing to continue to believe that the delusion before them is truth and by refusing to journey to the outside. This ignorance will lead the characters in both stories to follow a delusion and see only what they choose to see, not wanting to experience or even try another road for fear that it will be too much for them to handle. In another sense, the women, by concealing the evidence, choose to leave the cave and explore a different domain unknown to them even with fear of the unknown. After all, “the idea of good appears last of all, and is seen only with an effort,” said Socrates.
The connection between “The Allegory of the Cave” and “A Jury of Her Peers” is represented by the ability of the individuals in both stories to ultimately choose their reality. The dominance in “A Jury of Her Peers” is represented by the male characters and “The Allegory of the Cave” by the shackles that hold the prisoners in place and the dishonesty of the men parading the shadows before them. In “A Jury of Her Peers” this dominance is overcome by the women who choose to step out of their caves, dismissing the shadows as lies and embracing the truth. In “The Allegory of the Cave,” though the freed prisoner encourages the others to see the real truth, they decline. They are similar to the men in Glaspell’s story choosing to believe what has been taught to them and dismiss all possibility.
Dominance can have a profound affect on the holder of such power, making them ignorant of the truth as both stories have shown. In addition, it can have a deep impact on the individual being dominated. They must decide whether to live in another’s reality according to their rules and values, succumbing to the darkness of the cave. If they choose to abandon the cave; however, their journey of enlightenment is sure to begin.

Work Cited
Glaspell, Susan. “A Jury of Her Peers.” 1929. A Jury of Her Peers (Short Stories). Hadley, MA: Creative Education, 1992.
“Justifiable Homicide or Willful Murder.” Anamosa State Penitentiary. 5 Oct 2002. 28 Mar 2008
Plato. “The Allegory of the Cave.” The Republic. Book VII. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 11 Apr 2008
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I submitted my term paper to this blog because I reference Plato's "The Allegory of the Cave" throughout my analysis.

Ryenn Micaletti
Dr. Lee Hobbs
American Literature 1915 – Present
22 April 2008
“The Lottery” and the “Allegory of the Cave”: Isolation and Ignorance
A common metaphor represented in Plato’s parable of the cave and Jackson’s short story, “The Lottery” is that isolation causes ignorance. In Plato’s parable, the people have been held captive in a cave their entire lives. Their minds have been confined to knowing things they have learned from being inside of the cave. By that, the people are not willing to accept anything else as reality, causing ignorance toward the outside world. In Jackson’s short story, “The Lottery”, the society which people live in is based on traditional values. These traditional values keep them isolated from advancing with the rest of the world. The people in the story believe in a lottery where a person is chosen to be lapidated or in other words, stoned. They believe the lottery is a civil and normal tradition. Isolation has caused them to not realize that their traditional beliefs are barbarous and out-dated. The metaphor of isolation causes ignorance is not just found in “The lottery” and in Plato’s allegory, but in other literature, such as the novel, The Giver. Isolation of one’s mind causes their perception of reality to be very vague. The story of “The Lottery” and the “Allegory of the Cave” can be identified in our world today.
The reoccurring metaphor, isolation causes ignorance means that seclusion of one’s mind causes lack of knowledge. If one is kept in a house their entire life, and someone tells them that there is an outside, more than likely the person who has lived in the house their entire life, will not perceive the outside to be real. They will not embrace the fact that outside is a part of reality. Isolation does not just have to happen to one person. It can happen to a city, a village, a country or even a continent. An example of this is a group of people who have not been outside of their community or comfort zone. When they are finally exposed to things that do not normally happen in their culture, they usually shun it.
Jackson’s story, “The Lottery”, takes place in a village of about 300 people not very long ago. This village has been holding the tradition of the lottery for many years. The tradition of the lottery is every single person that lives in the village must meet at the square once a year and someone is randomly selected to be lapidated. The person is randomly selected. Everyone takes a small piece of paper that is folded out of a little black box. Anyone who has the single black dot drawn on their piece of paper must be stoned. The children of the village also take part in this tradition. While reading the story, it seems as if all the members of society feel that this is normal and are accustomed to this. Tradition is a major part of this village’s culture. Their belief in this tradition is so strong, that they have been using the same box since the lottery was started. The box they used in this particular story is made from the fragments of the box used before that, which was the first box ever used. In the text it states, “Mr. Summers spoke frequently to the villagers about making a new box, but no one liked to upset even as much as tradition as was represented in that black box” (Jackson 2). In the story, Mr. Adams says, “That over in north village they’re talking about giving up the lottery” (Jackson 4). After, he says this, Old Man Warner abruptly responds saying, “Listening to the young folks, nothings good enough for them. Next thing you know, they’ll want to go back to living in caves, nobody work anymore, live that way for a while” (Jackson 4). The way Old Man Warner and the rest of the village acts toward the lottery have shown that they have not advanced as a society.
The lottery’s origin stems from the Pagan ritual of sacrificing a human life for prosperities sake. Like those of the Pagans, the villagers of this story have long forgotten the tradition. The people of this story minds are isolated to think that this is the only way that the land will be fertile. This isolation causes lack of knowledge. The people believe that this lottery is the only way that they will be able to have fertile soil. If they would not isolate themselves, and realize what the other villages are doing in order to receive fertile soil, they will then be able to advance as a society. The ritual and fulfilling this tradition, justifies and masks brutality in this story.
In Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave”, he tells Glaucon a story of prisoners who have been imprisoned in a cave with their heads positioned straights and chained into a seating position since their childhood. Behind them is an enormous wall with a fire burning behind it. From this wall, villagers use objects as puppets which become shadows that are seen by the prisoners. The prisoners perceive these shadows to be reality. Plato states, “To them, I said, the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of images” (Plato). The prisoners then are released; they stand up and walk towards the light. When they walk towards the light, they experience sharp pains. The instructor tells them that the objects that they have seen their entire imprisonment are just shadows. Not reality. The prisoners are now presented with “real existence” (Allegory).
In the cave, the prisoners are isolated from the rest of the world. They only have grown to know as reality, what goes on inside that cave. The shadows that they saw everyday were their truth. When they were released from the cave, they felt sharp pains (Hooker). These pains came from them being exposed to sunlight and not being able to turn their necks for such a long time. Symbolically, I believe these pains are like the pains people go through when they are first introduced to truths that are unlike their own. When a person has been lied to for a very long time, and has based their beliefs and their lives on these lies, when finally hearing the truth, it may cause a great deal of pain.
Isolation that causes ignorance can be identified in the world that we live in today. In Eldorado, Texas, there is a polygamous sect that lives in a ranch. They practice the teachings of the Fundamentalist church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. In this sect they wear clothes that model those of pilgrims. They practice polygamy, which is the practice of having more than one wife at one time. These people live in a ranch that is isolated from the rest of society. This isolation causes them to keep their same traditions, values, and ideas and not experience anything else. These people have been recently charged with child abuse. Children young as 14 years old have been pregnant. These people believe that this is normal and should be going on. These are their truths. They refuse to believe that there is anything wrong with this practice. Our truths, and our reality, are that child abuse is wrong. The sect is society is in an isolated place in Texas away from society (Polygamist).
Another example in literature, other than Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” and “The Lottery” is the story of the novel, The Giver. The Giver is about an eleven year old boy named Jonas who lives in a society where there is no pain, fear, war, or hatred. In this society, people are given jobs based on their natural abilities and skills. Children are born by birth mothers whose job is to give birth to children and then take care of them for a year before they are given up to families. All of the children who are flawed and the senior citizens of the society are “released” from the society. The society uses the term “release” ‘aka’ death. They believe that these people go to a happier place, but really they are being put to death (Lowry).
In this novel, this society is isolated along with the people that live in this society’s minds. These people have no recollection of anything that has ever happened to them. No one is allowed in or out of this society. People who disobey the rules of society are released. All of the people who live in this society do not try and change what is going on. They do not know how to think or feel. These people are not exposed to the common things that happen in a regular society. This makes them ignorant to people who have other ideas and do not follow the rules of the society they live in. Therefore the society does not advance.
Isolation causes ignorance is found not only in literature, but also in today’s society. In “The Lottery” and the “Allegory of the Cave”, isolation is found not only in their societies, but also the minds of the people who live in them. In “The Lottery”, the people had their tradition isolate their knowledge from understanding that their tradition of the lottery is out-dated. They do not understand that their tradition does not make the land fertile. It seems that this tradition they practice is very old, and is not useful anymore. Even though they heard other villages were stopping the lottery, they were ignorant to find out why they were. In the “Allegory of the Cave” the people who were kept in the cave their entire lives and isolated from the rest of society, were ignorant towards understanding that their perception of reality was wrong at first. Then, they were enlightened when they walked outside. They experienced pain, like any other person would feel when they are finally enlightened with the truth after such a long time. In today’s world, we still see that it is prevalent among polygamist sects and in Middle Eastern countries. In literature, The Giver is a prime example of the metaphor ignorance causes isolation. Isolation is not always necessarily a bad thing. These people use it to try and preserve goodness and defend their reality. Maybe our perception of reality is wrong because we are isolated from different and causes us to be ignorant towards ideas and people who are different than us. Who are we to say whose reality is right or wrong? We know our reality, and if were told that what perceive to be real and true is wrong, then we would experience the same pain felt as the prisoners in Plato’s Allegory. How do we know that our reality is “real”?

Works Cited

Hooker, Richard. "Plato." Greek Philosophy. 01 Oct. 1996. 19 Apr. 2008 .
Jackson, Shirley. "The Lottery." Classic Short Stories. 2001. 22 Apr. 2008 .
Lowry, Lois. "The Giver." Spark Notes. 1993. 14 Apr. 2008 .
"Polygamist Sect." MSNBC. 22 Apr. 2008. The Associated Press Inc. 18 Apr. 2008 "The Allegory of the Cave." The Allegory of the Cave. 16 Apr. 2008 .
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This analysis has been submitted to this blog because my thesis is that isolation causes ignorance. Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” is a prime example of my theory. In my analysis it talks about how Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” gives support to my thesis.

Samantha Graham
Mr. Hobbs
EL 267
25 March 2008

Jonathan Safran Foer’s Everything is Illuminated and the Illumination of Characters
Oftentimes, books that have developed large audiences are adapted into major motion pictures because of the popularity of the book. Everything is Illuminated, is one such adaptation of a book written by Jonathan Safran Foer, and was created by Liev Schreiber in 2005. However, motion pictures do not portray a book exactly as written. Audiences will often comment that the movie is not as “good” as the book because the movie adaptation, in this case, does not fully illuminate the characters by just using illuminating effects and leaving out the past events that lead to the illumination. I will discuss the effects used on the flash backs that were included in the movie adaptation as well as how leaving out certain flashbacks has taken away from the full experience of the work. I will first focus on a scene that is close to the end of the movie that takes place once the protagonist, Jonathan, and his tour guides have reached Trachimbrod. In this section of the book, a flash back occurs, as opposed to the movie where the characters in the present simply retell the story of how the Nazis came and made the Jews spit on the Torah
The scene that will be focused on first occurs in two places in the book; the earliest is in chapter eighteen, “Falling in Love”. In this chapter, Jonathan and his party first run into the woman who they quickly mistake for Augustine, the woman in the photo with Jonathan’s grandfather. It is not until chapter twenty-three, “What we saw when we saw Trachimbrod, or Falling in love”, that the woman they mistake as Augustine retells what happened during the annihilation of Trachimbrod. ‘“She is not Augustine,” I told the hero. “I thought that she was, but she is not”’ (Foer 151). Throughout the book, flashbacks are sections that develop the characters from the past. Since the movie adaptation leaves out many of these flashbacks, it is nearly impossible to incorporate and make sense of the Trachimbrod flashback.
The movie adaptation differs greatly from the book because of the fact that the movie leaves out the flashbacks that develop the past tense characters. It is understandable that to make a reasonably timed movie, cuts need to be made. However, this greatly takes away from the drama and emotion of the scenes like the bombing of Trachimbrod when there is no opportunity to get to know or relate to the past tense characters as the tragedy strikes them.
Also, because of the lack of flashbacks and past tense character development, there are a lot of missed connections between characters and story. The past tense characters that are not included make up a greater part of the story. Instead, in the book, readers follow the past tense characters’ journey to find out events from the past. One might even argue that the past is the actual story and the present tense characters are there to make up the side story to tell the story of the past.
The movie begins with Jonathan standing in a graveyard, whereas the book starts with an introduction to Alex, Jonathan’s Translator’s, family life. The book then moves to the past. “It was March 18, 1791, when Trachim B’s double axel wagon either did or did not pin him against the bottom of the Brod River” (Foer 8). In this chapter the past tense characters start to develop and already, the movie is missing this quality because it skips this scene and shows no signs of telling the past events that Jonathan and Alex have discovered.
There are many more examples of past events being left out of the movie. “Yankel didn’t have the heart to tell her that he was not her father, that she was the Float Queen of Trachimday not only because she was without question the most loved young girl in the shtetl…” (Foer 77). These chapters show a lot of development in the illumination of Jonathan’s grandmother that is absent in the movie adaptation. All three chapters are retellings of the past that include past tense character and story line development. The aforementioned quote above is talking about how Jonathan’s great-great-great-great-grandmother was a very popular girl at Trachimbrod and how Yankel was not her real father.
Leaving out those developments in the movie diminished the big scene when Jonathan, Alex, and Grandfather finally reached Trachimbrod. It was still effective in one way as Lista’s [Augustine’s] reaction is visible. The viewer had no connection to the past tense characters, or their history, making the climax of this scene weak in comparison to the book.
In the movie, the viewer travels along with the characters through their journey, but the full effect of illumination is not experienced. Throughout the whole book, Illumination is the knowledge gained by Jonathan of his family’s past. In learning about the past of his family, he learns about himself as well: “I do not think that there are any limits to how excellent we could make life seem” (Foer 180). This quote refers to the literal sort of illumination of embellishing the truth. At this point in the story Alex has written to Jonathan saying that they could even add Jonathan’s grandmother into their story if they wished to. It is the Illumination of the writer’s imagination to make things seem more beautiful or exciting. A form of Illumination that the movie greatly covers is that of memory. Grandfather and Lista are both trapped in a way by their memories, as neither can move forward to anything else. In the movie adaptation, the effect of Illumination is portrayed by a white light shining and slowly whiting out the screen.
The illumination effect is dispersed throughout three major points in the movie. The first is when Grandfather is driving Alex and Jonathan through what appears to be nothing but a grassy field, as they try to navigate their way to Trachimbrod. At one point they run out of gas and are forced to stop for the night. Grandfather wanders through the fields to some old stone structures that look like they once made up a building. Flashbacks are then used to show Grandfather standing in a line with other Jews, and Nazi soldiers in a firing line ready to shoot them. The soldier lifts his gun to shoot, and then the illumination effect takes place, whiting out the scene back to the present.
The movie deals a lot with the illumination of Grandfather, and yet there are important flashbacks that are either left out completely, or not fully explained. “…he went to the next man in line and that was me who is a Jew he asked and I felt Herschel’s hand again and I know that his hand as saying please please Eli please I do not want to die please do no point at me…” (Foer 250). In the movie, the flashback Grandfather has refers to the quote above that takes place in chapter 29 “Illumination.” Herschel was Grandfather’s friend. Then the Nazis invaded Kolki and lined up everyone in front of the Synagogue and told them that if they did not point out someone who was a Jew, they would be shot.
When it came time for Grandfather, who was Jewish himself, to point out a Jew, he had no choice but to point out his best friend Herschel in order to save his wife and child. Though the viewer would not know exactly what this scene is about, since the flashback Grandfather has is not portrayed exactly as it is in the book, the illumination effect used in the movie serves to show that a piece of Grandfather’s past has been illuminated or made known.
The next significant time that the illumination effect is used in the movie occurs at the very end of the book after Grandfather has written a suicide note for Alex to send to Jonathan: “If you are reading this, it is because Sasha [Alex] found it and translated it for you. It means that I am dead, and that Sasha is alive” (Foer 274). In the book, Grandfather commits suicide at home while everyone else is asleep after writing to Jonathan to tell him that Alex has kicked Father out of the house and taken over responsibility for his mother and little brother. He tells Jonathan that he is proud of Alex for doing the right thing, by telling Father to leave and not come back.
At the end of the book another important key to Grandfather’s illumination is left out of the movie. “…and it is not because I cannot endure. Do you understand? I am complete with happiness, and it is what I must do, and I will do it” (Foer 276). This quote is Grandfather telling Jonathan that he must go through with this, but not because he cannot keep going on through life, but because he has found total happiness. In the movie, Grandfather commits suicide when he, Alex, and Jonathan return to the inn the night before they have to take Jonathan back to the train station. Alex finds him in the morning, not understanding why Grandfather has committed suicide. The scene is of Grandfather with his wrists slit lying in the bathtub. The picture whites out in an illuminating effect from Grandfather driving the car, to the scene of him lying in the bathtub.
The illumination in this case goes to show that Grandfather has come to terms with his past, and it is now no longer a mystery. Alex knows who his grandfather was, as does Jonathan. Alex’s grandfather is finally freed of his past. He didn’t want Alex be held back by the past. To make it possible for Alex to move on, Grandfather kills himself so that he will not be around to remind Alex of the past.
The last scene in the movie, where the illumination effect takes place, is at the very end of the movie. Jonathan is riding down the escalator at the airport and the illumination effect takes place yet again as he is standing in front of his grandfather’s grave stone just where he started in the beginning of the movie. This illumination represents that the past has been illuminated, and that Jonathan has found out about himself or been illuminated himself by finding out about the past.
There are three key examples of illumination in the movie, but the full effect is still not gathered because the development of the past has been left out. The viewer does not experience the same feel, as they do not get the chance to know the past tense characters, or the building of the story of the past as Jonathan and Alex write the story together. It is always an interesting experience to see a movie adaptation of a book, but it still stands that the full effect of the main themes cannot be grasped by simply the movie alone. In a way it could be related to taking Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” and only showing the person who was freed leaving the cave without the background to what they were leaving. It is also related as leaving the cave and going into the light being knowledge or illumination. You cannot grasp the full effect of illumination or knowledge without knowing the entire back story.
Works Cited

Everything is Illuminated. Dir. Schreiber Liev. Perf. Elijah Wood, Eugene Hutz, and Boris Leskin. DVD. Warner Independent Pictures, 2005.

Foer, Jonathan S. Everything is Illuminated. New York: Harper Perennial, 2002.
"Plato's Cave." Mit.Edu. 5 Mar.-Apr. 2008 .

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This paper has been submitted to this blog because the theme of illumination can be traced to the shedding truth upon a character, and in the case of the Allegory of the cave, light also represents finding truth.

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*NOTE* The deadline for this particular assignment has now passed. Any comments listed below are *ONLY* for the reposting of comments that I specifically asked to be revised or are ones from non-student posters. Any 'student' posts below that missed the assignment deadline will not get credit for the assignment. ~ Dr. Hobbs

Paola S
ENG 225
CA01
Plato’s Allegory Cave
The character I chose is Oedipus. Throughout his life Oedipus was blind to the truth. He was blind to who his real parents were, he was blind to the fact that he was the cause of the plague, and that he was fulfilling the prophecy stated by the oracle. Oedipus killed his father and married his mother without knowing. He lived in a cave because he was unaware of the atrocious acts he was committing. Once the truth was revealed to him he became enlightened. Physical blindness is also present in the story. This is evident when Oedipus deprives himself from a sense of vision when he learns the truth. It can be somewhat ironic, since, when he became enlightened to the psychological truth, he inflicted self-punishment and became physically blind. It is also evident that Oedipus was reluctant to accept the truth, as those in Plato’s cave, even though to some extend he already knew it.

Think about ALL of the characters we have discussed so far in this course, whether they were protagonists, antagonists, or just "supporting" or minor characters. Have any of them been represented as receiving a substantial "enlightenment" of any kind?
Enkidu has been brought to enlightenment in the story of Gilgamesh. He was a human who roamed the lands like a beast, feasting as they do and living the life as one. Then all of a sudden, a prostitute shows him what being a human is like causing him to never be able to return back to the wild. He wants to go back at first but then realizes that this is what he really is and he can’t change it.
Enkidu was “in the cave” when he roamed the field like a wild beast. After seeing a woman’s love, he was brought “out of the cave” and into the lightened world. He was in the lightened world until becoming sick as a curse by the goddess Ishtar. Then he was cared for by Gilgamesh and later died. He went back “into the cave” when he died because he was no longer a man in the lightened world.

The work that I choose to look at when applying the concept Allegory of the Cave was the The Cheating Merchant in the Jataka readings. This story was about a man called Wisest who was trying to play a trick on his fellow partner Wise. They were both partners in a partnership, and were to spilt the shares equally. However, wiser thought up a plan to have his father to be a voice in the “Sprit Tree” that would determine who got what share of the money. Wisest father, who was hidden in the tree, announced that Wisest should receive two shares and Wise only one share. It was not clear that this was actually the “Tree Sprit” so they burnt the tree. It is clear that there was a sense on cheating among Wiser. Wiser thought that he could out smart Wise, but indeed end up losing his father in the process. The away I applied this to the Allegory of the cave was that Wisest learned his lesson from trying to cheat others. Wiser had a history of cheating people in the past and it only can work for so long until something bad happens to you. In this case his father was put to death and in the end they both ended up with the same share of money. If Wisest would have just spilt the money evenly than everything would of worked out for the best. The coming to the light is when he realizing this and in the future will learn to share and cheat others inside of being the dark and trying to outsmart and basically cheat others.

Kamille G 26/09/08

In the Epic of Gilgamesh, Enkidu is an example of a character that was once in the dark and brought into the light. Enkidu was originally a wild man who “was innocent of mankind” (pg.13) and “ate grass in the hills… and lurked with wild beasts” (pg. 14). For the first part of Enkidu’s life, the only life that he knew was one in which he lived with and protected wild animals. While living in the hills Enkidu was ignorant of what it was like to think like or be a human. In Enkidu’s eyes the wild beasts were like his companions, genetically similar to him, and living in the wild was the home of Enkidu. Then, when a harlot sleeps with Enkidu and teaches him the “woman’s art” Enkidu becomes civilized and he is no longer the savage man that he was before (pg.14). After Enkidu sleeps with the harlot for six days and night he grows “weak” and “wisdom was in him, and the thought of a man were in his heart” (pg 15). At that point Enkidu has been brought to the light, his past life of living in the wild with wild beasts, in the darkness, is replaced with a life where he is civilized and lives with others like him, humans.
While Enkidu lived in the hills, the wild beasts were like the prisoners in Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, they were exposed to the same knowledge of living in the wild and eating grass as Enkidu was exposed to. Enkidu then follows the path of the escaped prisoner in search for new knowledge, and learns of the “woman’s art” (pg.14). Enkidu then becomes knowledgeable of what it is like to think like and be human. The wild beasts which reject Enkidu, after he is exposed to new knowledge, are like the prisoners who were left behind in the cave and which are resistant to new knowledge. After Enkidu obtains his new knowledge he no longer wants to return to his life of darkness, but he goes in search of even more knowledge, closer to the sunlight, when he asks the harlot to “take me to that holy temple… where Gilgamesh lords it over the people” (pg. 15). Enkidu does not return to the cave just like the escaped prisoner of Plato’s Cave, and he moves further away from the cave, and goes in search for someone who “would understand his heart” (pg.15).

Kamille G
Eng. 225 Sec. 1
26/09/08

Myles Godet
Dr. Lee Hobbs
English 225
September 26, 2008

I feel as though the story of Noah and the Great Flood can be used to depict Plato’s allegory of the cave. This is because at first Noah is in a world full of sin, and then he receives enlightenment from God whom tells him to construct an ark. Upon completion Noah filled it with two of everything, after which God flooded the earth. The flood can be seen as Noah being lead out of the darkness. Once the flood waters had receded the earth had been washed clean of all evil. This would symbolize Noah now being out of the cave.

King Shahrayar and Shahrazad become enlightened about woman, and her cunning. Each brother a king of much land, is cheated on by their wives. Each brother then makes a pledge to go and wonder the lands looking for someone who was less fortunate than they. When the by chance encounter a demon of the sea, the demon having a “chased” woman in a chest, stolen on by he on her wedding night. When let out of her chest, has her way with the two brothers. Only after do they learn that they are the ninety ninth and the hundredth to pleasure this “chased” prize of the demon’s. After which they decide no matter what, a woman will find a way to get what they desire, and no one can stop them.

Jonathan Till
9-25-08
Eng 225

“Allegory of the Cave”
A character that has undergone an awakening or enlightenment would have to be Utnapishtim from Epic of Gilgamesh. At the start of his story, Utnapishtim lived as a regular man, not knowing the awesome power and fury of the gods. However, when Ea warns him of impending flood, Utnapishtim is in a way brought out of the cave and is endowed with immortality. He also received the joys and struggles of enlightenment. There is also Utnapishtim’s attempt to enlighten his visitor, Gilgamesh, by telling him of his own trials and tribulations. However, like those in the Cave, Gilgamesh refused to listen to those who had already been enlightened.

Strahil S.

Professor Lee Hobbs

ENG-225

26 September 2008

I am thinking about the king of Uruk. Initially we learn about him as an oppressing ruler and quite arrogant tyrant exploiting his people until Enkidu shows up and literary says, “Hey, the world you live in is wrong – there is a better world out there you have been missing”. Unwilling to surrender the way he lives, Gilgamesh engages in a fight with Enkidu in the course of which the king is enlightened to recognize the gift of the gods. Having found a friend, Gilgamesh discovers that there is another world for real but his journey has just started. After a while with the death of Enkidu, Gilgamesh is challenged to re-think another concept from his old world – the idea of eternal life. He takes another journey, this time alone, to discover that there is another world in which death eventually comes to everybody at some point but everything is more beautiful, more enjoyable, and more real just because of that fact.

S.Tavares
CA 01 12:30 -1:20

One character which I thought could follow along with the story of the Allegory and the Cave would be Gilgamesh. I think Gilgamesh had found enlightenment in his ways of thinking and how he viewed life. The point of enlightenment I found to have happened during the story is when Gilgamesh lost his friend Enkido. His death caused Gilgamesh to evaluate his life and the choices he once made for himself and others. Gilgamesh was able to reach a level of understanding and began searching for what life really meant to him. This renewal of ideas and beliefs on life caused Gilgamesh to make a change for the better and find out what the true meaning of life meant.

Anna R
Engl 225. 01
9-26-08
Dr. Hobbs

To me, Medea was brought out of the cave. In earlier years, women had no rights and no say in any relationship with a man. If a man left his wife and children, that's how it was and the woman could do nothing against that. Medea was the first woman to ever stand up for herself and do something about being left alone with her children. I don't agree how she handled the situation by killing her kids and Jason's new wife in order to stand up for herself, however, she was the first lady to ever come out of the cave and enlighten herself and others that women have rights just as well as men do and with that she even sort of paved the way for future women who are oppressed by their husbands. Her cave was her not really her marriage but moreso the fact that it wasn't in a lady's place to do something about being left by her husband. Her cave was society and its mindset that it was normal for women to be oppressed. However, Medea came out of that cave and handled the situation differently than her peer women in that time.

Walter Perkins
Eng 225
Dr. Hobbs
9-26-08

Enkidu from the Story of Gilgamesh is a prime example of a character transforming into something new. Enkidu was originally living in the wild and had creature like habits. For his whole life Enkidu was raised by animals. Then one day a prostitute named Shamhat trained him into being a human. She used her sexuality to tame Enkidu into a civilized like human being. Enkidu had the same physical built as Gilgamesh, but when Shamhat helped conform Enkidu into a more a civilized creature; he became one of Gilgamesh and his companion. Although Enkidu conformed and became civilized he never lost touch with his roots or animal friends, but Enkidu is an example of transformation of a character in a story.

D.J. Garry
Dr. Hobbs
English 225 CA.01
25 September 2008
Platos Cave
One character that immediately comes to mind as being in “the cave” is Enkidu. He is in the cave when he is in the wild. He knows no other world. He believes that the wild is all that exists and believes him to be an animal. He receives that initial enlightenment when he meets the girl. He meets a human for the first time and is introduced to a whole new world. The animals would not even accept him after that event. He starts to receive more enlightenment throughout his many journeys with Gilgamesh. He learns a lot about life, love, evil, and all the other rigors that people are exposed to.

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*NOTE* The deadline for this particular assignment has now passed. Any comments listed below are *ONLY* for the reposting of comments that I specifically asked to be revised or are ones from non-student posters. Any 'student' posts below that missed the assignment deadline will not get credit for the assignment. ~ Dr. Hobbs

One character that has been able to reach beyond the cave is me. After the trip to Israel I realized how lucky I was to live where I am from. I saw how hard it is for the people to live over there and what they have to go through to try and have a “normal” day. We are given so much freedom here in the states that we take advantage of it. We become too comfortable with ourselves because of how secure we might feel. The people in Israel are under a constant stress, always watching his or her back, almost expecting something bad to occur. The life style we live in the United States gives everyone so many opportunities, but we all take life for granted.

In the model of Plato's Cave, the people do not know anything more than what the have been taught. In the story "The Lottery,"the people draw paper with names on it to decide who should be stoned. Due to the fact that this practice has been taught for generations the towns people do not know any better.They are blinded to the fact that what they are doing is wrong because that was what they were taught from birth and they have not been enlightened to otherwise.

Plato's allegory of the cave was very fasinating to me. I believe it represents an individual growing up and seeking the truth for their own knowlege and then going forth and expanding their views of the world. However, there are those who "stay in the cave" by choosing ignorance to keep them happy in their ways. This is represented in the Lottery. The Lottery was a tradition that needed to be abolished, but some of the towns people are so set in their ways that they refuse to hear the truth. Unfortunately, this holds others back from expanding their knowlege.

The Lottery and The Cave

I would say that out of all of the people who live in the town have been stuck in the cave. The people of the town have this lottery where one person from each family, preferably a male reaches into this black box and selects a piece of paper. Which ever family gets the piece of paper with the dark spot on it, must have each member of their family pick again. Who ever in the family picks the paper with the dark spot on it will be stoned to death. The people in the town have no idea why they do this barbaric ritual, but they do it with out questioning it. Mrs. Tessie Hutchinson was the person who pulled out the paper with the black dot and the entire town has no problem killing her. Her own children completely let go of the fact that she’s there mother and join in with the stoning. The only person who has a problem with the ritual is the person who is about to die. It’s like that black dot awakens them from this nightmare. Mrs. Tessie Hutchinson is the person who gets free from the confines of the cave and is trying desperately to talk everyone into not choosing her family and then down to not killing her. She keeps repeating that, “It isn’t fair, it isn’t right.” But if it wasn’t Mrs. Tessie Hutchinson about to die, she would have no problem killing one of her neighbors and thus she’d still be stuck in the cave.

Platos allegory of the cave and the short story "the lottery," both tell of people trapt. The people in allegory of the cave were born in a cave and knew nothing better they were isolated from the out side. in "the Lottery the same thing is true the people knew nothing outside of their little world. charecters from both stories are left in the dark.

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*NOTE* The deadline for this particular assignment has now passed. Any comments listed below are *ONLY* for the reposting of comments that I specifically asked to be revised or are ones from non-student posters. Any 'student' posts below that missed the assignment deadline will not get credit for the assignment.

~Dr. Hobbs