The By Daniel Quinn s Ishmael, And Plato s Allegory Of...

Captivity is a subject that has been discussed thoroughly by many people. Captivity is the main concept touched in Daniel Quinn’s novel, Ishmael, and Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. Plato makes the compelling argument that people are captives of the world of ignorance. Ishmael complements Plato’s allegory by agreeing that there are two groups of people, that it would be difficult to distinguish the truth, and that people are being deceived. Plato and Ishmael were both able to indicate that there are two groups of people. In his allegory, Plato had described a cave with human beings living in it, â€Å"they cannot move, and can only see before them..between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised way..†(DiYanni 406). He said that these people were prisoners who were left to believe that the shadows casted before them were the real truth. But the second group was people out of the cave. Similarly, Ishmael described that there were groups of people in t he â€Å"cave† and out of it. â€Å"The world of the Takers is one vast prison, and except for a handful of Leavers scattered across the world..† (Quinn 251). Ishmael has defined these two groups as Takers and Leavers. The Takers being those who are chained in the cave believing the-world-was-made-for-their-conquering shadow. To further explain the difference between people in the cave and people out of it, Quinn uses modern culture. â€Å"You call yourselves civilized and all the rest primitive...the people of London and Paris and Baghdad