Thinking Outside the Box

  The “Allegory of the Cave” by Plato and “No Exit” by Satre relate by both showing real life themes. Both Plato and Satres believe that we are limited to our own thoughts and to what we can do. Though they both express them differently they end up having the same theme.  Plato describes people who have been in a cave their entire life and one person decides to leave the cave and realizes there is more to life than the shadows they would see. When he tried going back and telling the others they refused to believe it and killed him. Satres expresses this theme by having three people in hell all there for a different reason. They all have committed sins that landed them in hell and all carry some type of similar trait that the others have, but that trait irritates them all.
  Though the theme is limitation in thoughts they are both limited for different reasons. The people in “Allegory of the Cave” are limited to their thoughts because they choose to be. The person that left came back and tried to teach them more about what the world really is but  they refused to listen. They did not want to know about anything other than their “reality” which was the shadows. But the people in “No Exit” are limited to their powers because they are only surrounded to the other two people who are in hell with them. They are isolated from other people and have no other ways of being informed.
  The fact that they are limited to their own thoughts shows that they have to rely on others for the information they receive.  They can not  even think for themselves and whether that is by choice or because they have to it affects them. The two authors were trying to show that with limitation in thoughts not much can be done. They are trying to get others to see that people need to have an open mind so that things can work better and this world can work. If people were more open minded things would flow better but since most people are limited in thought things are the way they are. Both authors were from different time periods and the fact that they wrote about the same theme shows how little things have changed.