Sanford

Lakeycia Sanford

Kristy Singletary

23WNCMP ENG-201-20106

2/26/2023

A Literary Analysis of Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” and Dante’s Inferno

Dante’s Inferno is a poem written by Dante Alighieri that follows the story of Dante

as he travels through hell. Dante bears witness to the tortures that take place in hell to

different individuals who had been tangled with various sins while on earth. There are nine

levels of hell, with the first level reserved for individuals who did not know about Christ and

the ninth reserved for traitors (Alighieri and Wadsworth). On the other hand, the Allegory of

the Cave is a figuration written by Plato. It follows the allegory of prisoners who have been

chained inside a cave all their lives. These prisoners face a wall, with the only light source

being a fire behind them. This fire casts shadows on the wall before them, and there are

people behind them manipulating puppets so that the puppets cast shadows on the wall before

the prisoners. The prisoners assume that the shadows are real because it’s all they have ever

known. When one of them escapes and experiences the world outside, he comes back to try

and illuminate his fellow prisoners but is blinded by the darkness in the cave. The others now

perceive the outside as being the cause of blindness and wouldn’t listen to the escapee

(Plato). Both these readings utilize allegory to pass their messages across, yet the use varies.

An analysis of these texts reveals that Plato’s use of allegory differs from that of Dante in

symbolism, purpose, characters, and general outlook of the world.

The Use of Allegory

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While Dante utilizes allegory to ascribe the sinners’ punishments to his own, Plato

uses it to shade light (pun intended) on knowledge and ignorance. Plato uses allegory to point

out the ignorance of the human condition (Heidegger). When Dante’s Inferno is analyzed,

one realizes that it discusses a detailed descent from hell’s upper (better) echelons to the

lowest and most evil. Essentially Dante categorically gives a description of the hierarchy of

hell. Contrariwise, Plato’s allegory is used to describe an ascent. The Allegory of the Cave

describes the ascent of humans from ignorance to awareness and knowledge as a single

prisoner leaves the confines of the cave to experience the outside world. This means that even

though both authors make good use of allegory, they use it to deliver different messages to

different audiences.

Symbolism in the Two Pieces of Literature

It is immediately evident upon the commencement of each of the two literary works

that symbolism is at the heart of both. There s heavy use of symbolism by both Dante and

Plato, and one must take care not to misinterpret the symbols used. In Plato’s The Allegory of

the Cave, there are various symbols used, and they represent the truth, ignorance, knowledge,

resistance to and fear of change, and society. Plato uses the darkness of the cave to represent

human ignorance. The small fire in the cave represents the limited knowledge that binds

people and gives them just enough information to believe they have a lot and hence not seek

more knowledge. The chains are used to symbolize society’s norms that prevent them from

seeking more knowledge because that would contradict societal beliefs. The people behind

the prisoners represent the informed individuals who pull the strings and mislead others so

they can keep them ignorant and, in that way, lead them to do their bidding. The light

represents knowledge/truth that is so essential, yet people don’t see it because they have been

taught to remain in the dark (ignorance). The reluctance of the prisoners to believe their

fellow escaped prisoners represents society’s fear of and resistance to change. The Allegory of
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the Cave uses lots of symbols to point out the illusions present in the material world (Balla

30)

Dante’s Inferno also makes use of symbolism, but it uses symbols to mean different

things from Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. While Plato equates light to a definitive truth that

people should be seeking, Dante uses light to represent God. He uses the symbol of light to

represent a guiding force rather than a definitive one. He also uses sinners and different

punishments to represent evil’s severity and show that not all evil is the same. Dante argues

that every wrongdoing varies in intensity, and thus each evil requires different kinds of

punishment. Some of the choices he’s made might be controversial to some because,

according to him, treachery is the highest form of evil and requires the highest form of

punishment. Dante uses the character of Virgil in the story to represent reason. The character

of Virgil is used to show that in every situation, no matter how dire, human reason can help

one navigate all the evils of life and reach the light in the long run.

Character Use

In both texts, characters are used differently by the authors to address different

agendas. In “The Allegory of the Cave, Plato uses noticeably few characters, and, except for

the prisoner who escaped from the cave, none of the other characters can be distinguished

from each other. The single prisoner attempts and fails to be the mentor of the others and

liberate them from the cave. His efforts to free the other prisoners are met with skepticism

and even threats. Even when Plato chooses to distinguish the prisoner who escaped from the

others, all the characters remain faceless and nameless, and one never gets to learn anything

about the characters as individuals (Duarte). In contrast to Plato’s plain development of

characters, Dante utilizes several characters. The reader first encounters the ghost of Virgil,

who was a great Roman poet. Virgil explains to Dante that his wife Beatrice had sent him
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(Virgil) after noticing that Dante was lost and stranded in the woods. After meeting Virgil,

Dante meets numerous other sinners he names, like the ferryman Charon, Francesca, Filippo

Argenti, Pier della Vigna, and many others. Dante even gets to meet with the devil. Even

though both books vary greatly character-wise, it is worth noting that both of them have a

‘mentor’ character. In Plato’s Allegory, the mentor is the escaped prisoner who wasn’t

listened to, while in Dante’s poem, Virgil acts as the mentor as he guides Dante through hell.

It’s worth noting that while the characters in Plato’s text had a choice, Dantte’s characters

had no choice and instead were forced to deal with the consequences of their actions.

Perspectives

When both these readings are analyzed, it becomes evident that both these writers

have unique perspectives on life that are different from each other. They both criticize the

world from different perspectives. While Plato criticizes the world from a sociological

perspective, Dante criticizes it from a religious point of view. It should be noted that Dante’s

previous works did not look at things from the Christian perspective. In fact, Dante is

considered to have deviated substantially from his own paradigms. Instead of using the (then)

contemporary way of thinking, he attempted to reconcile Christian theology with Aristotelian

and Ptolemaic cosmological thought (Blair). When Plato’s perspective is analyzed, the reader

discovers that Plato considers members of society to have myopic views. Even those who can

discern knowledge have a problem disbursing it and are often disregarded. Plato points out

the fact that society abhors being told that its beliefs and norms are wrong and may even

punish those who try to correct it. People can’t accept that some of the beliefs they had been

holding so dear were utter nonsense and meaningless illusion. While Plato attacks the myopic

societal view, Dante takes to criticizing other religions, specifically Islam and Judaism. He all

but declares that all Muslims will go to hell. While both these texts criticize from different

perspectives, both argue from the perspective of being absolutely right.

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Conclusion

Both Dante’s Inferno and The Allegory of the Cave carry strong messages that are thought-

provoking. However, these two pieces of literature have different elements of purpose,

characterization, mentorship perspectives, and symbolism. Plato strives to look at society and

uses logic and reasoning to enhance his arguments. He discusses the folly of human

ignorance and the irony of people refusing to be helped even though they are in dire need of

knowledge. While Plato’s purpose was to discuss human ignorance, Dante wanted to discuss

the issue of human sin. Both these authors discuss vices and feel quite strongly about the

vices they lay down. Plato pointed out that if people refused to be helped to eliminate

ignorance, they were doomed to remain in the darkness of ignorance. On the other hand,

Dante pointed out that if people continued sinning and refused to repent, they would find

themselves in one o the nine levels of hell, where they would be tortured for eternity.
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Works Cited

Alighieri Dante, and Wadsworth, Henry. The Divine Comedy. Project Gutenberg.

EBSCOhost. Accessed 16th July 2021

Balla, B. Symbolism Synesthesia and Semiotics, Multidisciplinary Approach. Xlibris

Corporation, 2012.

Blair, M. Points and Spheres: Cosmological Innovation in Dante’s Divine Comedy. May

2015. <chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://baylor-

ir.tdl.org/bitstream/handle/2104/9283/Blair%20Thesis%20PDFA.pdf?sequence=1>.

Duarte, E. “Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave”.” Duarte, E.M. Being and Learning. Sense

Publishers, 2012.

Heidegger, Martin. The Essence of Truth: On Plato’s Parable of the Cave and the Theaetetus.

A&C Black, 2002.

Plato, “Republic Book 7,” In PLATO IN TWELVE VOLUMES, Trans Paul Shorey, vol. 5 &

6, 12 vols. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press)