The Truman Show and the Allegory of the Cave

The Truman Show is a movie about the life of Truman Burbank. His life was unusual in the sense that he was the star of a reality television show based on his life. Unaware of this concept he lived his life like any normal person. Everyone that he knew in his life was an actor or actress pretending to be his mother, wife, friend, coworker, or neighbor. The movie was broken up into three different "worlds". There was Truman's world, which consisted of everything he knew to be reality; the director's world, where the show, and Truman's life were controlled; and the viewers' world, where the people, viewers, watched the life of this man religiously. The movie introduces Truman at a time where he is being to realize that there is something wrong with his life and by the end of the film shows his escape and realization of the real world.

"We accept the reality of the world in which we are presented." This was a quote by the director of the show, "The Truman Show". Truman Burbank lived his life in a television studio since his birth. He was unaware of this fact causing him to believe that the lifestyle he was living was normal. In Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" the people in the cave, watching the puppets, were unaware of any other lifestyle or world other than the one in which they were presented. Truman was told by some people throughout his life that the life he was living was just a television show but he was unable to understand and ignored them. When the person in the cave was first told that there was more to life than the cave, he did not believe it. It was not until he witnessed the true world, life outside of the cave, that he knew and believed anything else. Although Truman was told about the other life, it was not until he saw and witnessed things for himself that he began to believe any of it. When the prisoner in the cave went back down to tell the others they killed him for trying to change their opinions, believing that he was crazy. In Truman's case the others he tried to tell were all in on the scheme so they told him he was crazy but with a different meaning. Through his struggle Truman was able to escape and face the "real world".