The Matrix has many different
philosophical concepts that make it a great movie for entertainment
and for deep thought. The Matrix has many similarities with The
Adventure of the Hero. It also has many similarities with the
Allegory of the Cave and with Plato. And these, Adventure, Matrix,
Cave, and Plato, all connect with each other.
We start with The Matrix and The
Adventure of the Hero by Joseph Campbell. The hero goes on a journey
or an adventure and in The Matrix, Neo is the hero. Neo is called to
be the hero, he refuses, he then accepts, and viola his adventure
starts. The hero that Joseph Campbell also goes through these steps
in a much more detailed version, he came up with the conclusion that
every hero goes through these steps, maybe not all exactly, maybe
sometimes adding steps or taking away some steps or having the steps
in a different order. So Neo is our hero and he must go through
trials and fights or battles, he meets a goddess, Trinity, he gains
full power and knowledge at the end of the movie, he is a classic
example of the Hero. Thor is another example of the Hero story,
especially with the scene where he appears to have died and his
hammer flies to him and he comes back as the mighty Thor. This goes
along with the Adventure of the Hero, where the hero appears to have
died and some outside force helps him and he comes back to conquer
the world.
We then have the Allegory of the Cave
which Plato drew and created as a theory of how ordinary people are
versus philosophers. The ordinary people are chained to a wall
without being able to turn around, they can only see shadows in front
of them of objects behind them that they do not know about. Now the
philosopher would be the one person that becomes unchained and sees
the real objects, he explores and finds the entrance/exit to the
cave, he goes out and is in utter awe of what he sees. In The Matrix,
Neo is reborn in the vat of pink goo. He becomes unchained or
unhooked from the tubes and he sees all around him, the billions of
other vats. He is in utter awe of what he sees. He would be the
philosopher when compared with the Allegory of the Cave. In Batman
The Dark Knight Rises, when Batman climbs out of the prison he was in
and he is in awe of what he did, it would kind of be like the Cave
for Batman climbs out of the pit of imprisonment, the philosopher
getting unchained. He is in awe of his surroundings and what he
accomplished, when the philosopher exits the cave and sees all the
beauty of the world.
Plato had many different beliefs and
concepts. One of his concepts was the World of Ideas, he believed
that there is another world where ideas are and our soul lives there
before it is placed inside our body. He believed that when we are
then born our soul knows what a table is because the soul knew it in
the other world. He was the student of Socrates and he was the one
that wrote all of Socrates' discussions. The way Plato can connect
with The Matrix is where Plato wrote about Socrates' life, and Neo's
life was a little like Socrates, when he was born, and as he grew, he
knew there was something wrong with the world and he wanted to find
out what was wrong. Neo then discovers the Matrix, he is born again
and is in awe of this world he knew was there but didn't see, he
later tries to tell others of the Matrix. This is very much like
Socrates, who always tried to make people think, he was trying to
prove that man cannot possibly know everything, he would make the
smartest man feel stupid. The bug difference is that Socrates was
killed for speaking out philosophically while Neo was not killed.
Plato and the Hero story relate to
each other for Plato's Socrates was like the hero. Socrates was the
hero that Joseph Campbell wrote about. Now not all the steps are the
same for Socrates dies at the end for what he believes, but it is
quite similar. The hero's journey is like Socrates' journey trying to
teach others and to make them think.
Now Plato and the Allegory of the Cave
relate for Plato gave the concept of the Allegory of the Cave, he
drew it, he thought of it, he created it. Plato just created it in
Socrates' written mouth, so it looked like Socrates told his class
about it even though Plato did.
The Adventure of the Hero and the
Allegory of the Cave connect for the hero goes through a rebirth, he
becomes a hero, he does something, he returns, he tries to help
people in the old world. The philosopher that is unchained is the
hero for he is reborn, he is in awe of all he sees, what he has seen
all his life was false, it was merely shadows, he does something; he
acquires knowledge, he returns, the only difference is that the
philosopher is supposed to die at the end while the hero does not.
Other than that they connect quite well.
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