Man Thai FYS First paper Sep 22 2013

The crucial acquisition of knowledge

Both short stories were written in different ways: Allegory of the Cave was a conversation where one gave his argument by constantly raising up questions after receiving agreeing feedbacks while Le Horla was a journal where our protagonist shared his daily encounter with the Invisible, making such paranormal activities more creditable to the readers. Certainly the view of an elite can be much different from one of a prisoner, they nonetheless hold the same concept of human nature: Despite of our premature arrogance, we always seek for further concepts to enrich our souls and assure ourselves of the unknown in advance of our surface knowledge. Not only the protagonist in Le Horla felt complacent with his fundamental knowledge at first, the prisoners in Platos cave even prided themselves on trivial knowing about shadowy perspectives of the world. The protagonist in Le Horla appeared to be an elite with his white pension taken care by dozen of servants. He read few books about the universe, but indeed valued his live as a hedonist, mostly concerned with the Seine river, Rouen and its Gothic towers, Mont Saint-Michel, explaining his indulge in nature beauty. The contemporary discoveries could only offer very basic theses of microbiology and astrology, which were not resourceful enough for his later paranoia, but at least met his need as one of a complacent person that enjoyed his current life. In Allegory of the cave, the prisoners legs and necks were

chained to the wall, and the fire behind their back threw them the shadows of passing-by objects, which were mostly their conversation topics. Plato concluded: And if they were in the habit of conferring honors among themselves on those who were quickest to observe the passing shadows and to remark which of them went before, and which followed after, and which were together. Since these mens world only revolved around black traces, they helplessly assumed it should also be the real world despite the fact that they never really acknowledged the truest color of what they had seen. Platos Allegory of the cave referred to his ill-fated mentor Socrates, who was ridiculed for his attempt to enlighten human: Men would say of him that up he went and down he came without his eyes; and that it was better not even to think of ascending; and if anyone tried to loose another and lead him up to the light, let them only catch the offender, and they would put him to death. Not much different from the people in Socratess times, these prisoners never doubted their instincts on the world, as for them it would be permanently covered with darkness and everything was black colored with different shapes. They were too fixed on such belief that they would undecidedly rebuff and even execute anyone who might stand out for another principal. Specific roots of these premature arrogances are the limitation of contemporary knowledge, lack of inspiration for further education, and the fixation on the human-know-it-all concept. However, sooner or later, these men gradually learnt about the actual knowledge with different approaches. The elite in Le Horla had his confrontation with a never-known-before apparition

lurking around, tried to govern his body and mind by sucking his soul away. At the same time he learnt about the abnormal hypnotism experiment on his cousin and the spiritual legends from a philosopher, which correlated with his hypothesis of the immaterial livings. No later than his further readings did he finally aware of further insight of science: The Invisible, just like the wind, though unobservable, does exist and also the origin of the apparition. This novel concept, though piled up his fear of the untouchable being, had totally relieved him from the paranoia of hallucination, and assured himself of his acknowledging of the now-known. He named it The Horla. On the other hand, the prisoner in Platos cave was given freedom to meet with the real world where tedious black shadows turn out to be attractively colorful objects. At this point, Plato narrated: He will be able to see the sun, and not mere reflections of him in the water, but he will see him in his own proper place, and not in another; and he will contemplate him as he is. This human was then thoroughly enlightened, with his whole body and mind despite the dazzling sunlight that distressed him all along. He would daringly face the reality that none of his friends would, grasping the meaning of life wholeheartedly to became the most enlightened to learn with effort. And there the author of Le Horla spoke up for his character: Oh! If we only had other organs which could work other miracles in our favor, what a number of fresh things we might discover around us! The elite himself used to wish to know more, to have clearer vision on his surroundings. Later this wish turned into a desperate desire to know and to touch the being existed in his dream in

order to offer him a secure feeling of something fairly-known. Human nature is afraid of uncertainty, which not only causes confusion but also insecurity. As in this context, the elite particularly felt like being a cattle subjugated by his unknown master. This is one typical motive that keeps driving humanity forward to further findings because we tend to reduce the uncertainty that can scare us to death. Another perspective to notice from Allegory of the cave is the amazement of enlightenment helped wake the inborn need for education. Following this long time being fooled by the hard cold darkness, he realized the fiery feeling for learning that suddenly stroke him after the first sunlight dawning on him. The prisoner was now enlightened, returned to his cave to share this magnificent experience and help broaden his fellows mind, but got ridiculed instead. Again, the premature arrogance with its fixation on surface knowledge threatened the light of education. It not only failed to admit its limited knowledge of the worlds illusion, but it also rebuked the individual that raised the need. With different beginnings, these stories also adored different disheartening endings : the elite in Allegory of the cave finished his journal with a few words of uncertainty to suicide while the prisoner in Le Horla failed to deliver his message on education. However, both short stories had concluded the contemporary students motives to be educated with precision: to break free from the limitation of being dull and insecure.