The Allegory of the Cave describes a cave where prisoners are kept with their feet and necks chained so they can only face one wall of the cave.

Behind and above the prisoners is a raging fire, in front of the fire is a roadway where figures and object are moved across so that the fire would cast their shadows on the far wall of the cave that the prisoners were facing.

The prisoners would then give names to these objects and had no idea they were shadows at all. They perceived these shadows as real objects.

But then suddenly, one of the prisoners is let free from his chains and is forced out into the real world.

At first he could not comprehend what he was seeing, he had lived his entire life in the cave and the sunlight hurt his eyes.

The prisoner was told that what he was seeing were real objects and what he saw in the cave were just shadows. At first he was perplexed by this notion, he could see the shadows so much clearer.