Document Type
Coming of Age and Education Essay
Publication Date
2006
Excerpt
Imagine what life in the American South during the early 1800's might have been like; one passing through the countryside of a Southern state might feel insignificant upon viewing the vast fields of cash-crops and imposing mansions of those who held dominion over them. However, one would find that this facade of an idyllically beautiful rural community was crafted by those who labored under the horrors of enslavement. While an outsider could merely marvel at what slave labor had produced, one who lived in slavery would see the same things in a completely different perspective. The institution of slavery is an excellent real-life example of Plato's famous "Allegory of the Cave." Plato's allegory serves to explain how truth is hidden from the masses; he states that what humans know is only the result of what a false reality has bestowed upon them. This is a fitting description ofa slave's life; he is born into bondage and is told things that are fabricated as justification for why he must call one master. In Plato's story, however, one of these prisoners manages to escape from his chains, is dragged out of the cave, and finds truth. When he finds truth, he is at first dumbfounded by it but eventually comes to accept it. The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself is a first-hand account of what one who escaped the confines of a fabricated reality might experience.
Recommended Citation
Beck, Ryan, "The Mark of a Solid Thought (2006)" (2006). The Valpo Core Reader. 106.
http://scholar.valpo.edu/core_reader/106