"Allegory of the Cave" Intro. Paragraph

     The allegory of the cave is a metaphor meant to illustrate the effects of education on the human soul.  This story is actually an extended metaphor, meant to teach that the goal of education is to drag every man as far out of the cave as possible.  The prisoners represent every human being.  They are used to demonstrate that in life, we are not constantly discovering new things, but instead are learning something that had already been there all along.