Plato's Allegory of the Cave and Chekhov's "The Bet"

During the journey from ignorance to wisdom, it would be expected that the person doing the searching would reach points where he would probably become frustrated, angry, frightened, or a combination of them all. He may become a pessimistic and faultfinding critic, as any cynic would be, or he could take an entirely different view of certain things that he is looking at. Enlightened, freed, and inspired, he could develop the feeling that the world is not so cold and cruel, but a place for opportunity and further discovery once he has become educated in the ways that the world and the mind work. But not many people are idealists to this extreme- at least not for their entire lives. There must be times when they are confused and frustrated, disappointed by the world that they live in and the new and frightening knowledge that they may suddenly have of it. The classic case would be Plato’s “Simile of the Cave,” in which he displays that knowledge and wisdom are essential to life an...