English Essay Help

21 April 2014

Assignment #2

Enlightenment From the Darkness of Ignorance

In "The Allegory of the Cave” by Socrates, Socrates says to Glaucon "let me show in a figure how far out nature is enlightened or unenlightened" (1112). In other words, Plato's "Allegory" is a text that talks about the process - or progress - of how human beings become enlightened, after spending their lives in comparative darkness staring at shadows of the true reality. Many of the other texts we have studied this semester also, in their own ways, have to do with imprisoned figures searching for intelligence. In "A Homemade Education" by Malcolm X, he accomplished this through learning to read. These two texts talk about a movement away from a kind of dark ignorance, an ignorance fostered by specific institutions of power that create what Plato has referred to as "an underground den."

In Platos text, it gives a great insight into Malcolm X's situation from his text. Malcolm X was basically an imprisoned figure who started a “search for intelligence” . “It was because of my letters that I happened to stumble upon starting to acquire some kind of homemade education” (715). Malcolm X started teaching himself which was the beginning of his “search for intelligence”. He did not want to be bound by his limited intellectuality anymore so he pursued this course to change it.

Within his imprisonment, Malcolm X started to see the shadows of the darkness he had been in and realize how much he had been missing. It was not until this realization that he had truly began his path towards enlightenment out of the darkness and into reality. “I spent two days just riffling uncertainly through the dictionary's pages. I'd never realized so many words existed! I didn't know which words I needed to learn. Finally, just to start some kind of action, I began copying” (716). After he made this shocking discovery about how truly in the dark he was he realized that he had to do anything and just continue further because learning and realizing that he never knew all of this had existed made him want to expand by any way. Platos text helps you connect and see these realizations.

In Plato's “Alegory” explains how humans become truly enlightened through a sort of process or a progress of it, after humans spend a great deal of their lives in a shadow and then coming out into reality. This helps give you an insight into Malcolm X's “A Homemade Education” because it shares almost all of these concepts which complement each texts giving a relation to one another. Platos text outlines what is going on inside Malcolms text and helps you understand the underlying issues that are going on making you able to understand the story in a greater detail.

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