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An Allegory of the Future: Commentary on Jose Saramago's The Cave |
| Section: BOOK WORLD / COMMENTARY |
| Author: Barbara Mujica |
| Publication: The world & I online |
| Issue Date: 4/1/2003 |
| Size: 2,676 Words, 16,357 Characters |
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In the allegory of the cave, in Book VII of Plato's Republic, Socrates describes human beings living enchained and immobile in an underground den that is open toward the light. Above and behind them a fire blazes at a distance. Between the fire and the prisoners, people pass along a raised parapet carrying all sorts of objects. Because of their position, the prisoners see only these pedestrians' shadows, which they take for reality because they are blind to the source of the images. "What a strange scene you describe and what strange prisoners," comments Glaucon, Socrates' disciple. "They are just like us," answers the master.
José Saramago, Portugal's premier novelist and winner of the Nobel Prize in literature in 1998, begins The Cave with this exchange between Socrates and Glaucon. F...
. . .
...y prediction. Once we have recognized the problem, it is, as Algor says, incumbent on us to act. We do not have to live in the Center. We are free to leave. We are free to remake our lives and our world. After all, that old, imperfect pottery is still hidden in the other cave, waiting for us to discover it.
Saramago has written a beautiful but frightening book. We would do well to pay him heed.
(806 of 16,357 characters)
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