The Republic

In book VII of Plato's The Republic the main theme revolves around Socrates's allegory of the cave. Socrates is telling a story of people who live in this cave and can not see anything other than what is directly in front of them. The shadows of these people are all that the prisoners behind them can see so that is all they believe in. One prisoner finally sees another person and it dramatically changes everything he believes in. Because he breaks out of the cave, he eventually discovers that there is an entire world around him that he had no idea about. Socrates relates this concept to education in that all people should be brought out of "the cave."