In this course of articles, we take a cursory view of a philosophical social movement or way of thinking and examine how that movement’s ideas can be utilized to enhance your fiction writing, bringing dynamism and realism to your worldbuilding and character motivation. In this installment, we tackle the ancient framework of Plato’s Cave, and bring it bang up to date with issues-based social fiction, and how one such trailblazing author created that ‘woke’ sensation in their work.

Plato was a philosopher from Athens, who wrote, philosophized and taught his students during the Classical Period of ancient Greece (around the 5th and 4th centuries BC). Plato had many excellent theories on society, culture, and human interaction, but the one which most relates to the current ‘woke’ mindset of today’s writers is that of The Cave. In this allegory, we imagine a group of people living in the meager light of a darkened cave, which they have never left. The people in the cave see shadows on the walls which reflect ordinary items, like trees, the sun, and other objects of nature. They name these objects as if they know what they are.

For Plato and his mentor Socrates, the philosopher is the person who steps outside the cave and realizes that the shadow pictures do not fully do justice to the reality of the sun itself, actual trees and so forth. When they return to the cave to try to explain this to other people, they do not understand the philosopher, because they have never seen the world outside the cave. The philosopher cannot stand the shadow pictures anymore, because now they know that they are merely a story, not reality.

In the new and exciting wave of social issues fiction hitting the world today, this sense of leaving the cave is embodied by many central characters who recognize that the reality of the world is not what they originally thought, and spend their time reconciling this and encouraging others to do the same. A perfect example is the New York Times debut bestseller The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas. In this story of contemporary family drama, a young black teenager, Starr, witnesses her male friend shot to death by a white police officer, who mistakes the boy’s hairbrush for a gun.

Once this shocking revelation hits Starr, and the nature of the fallacies in police culture, misconceptions and the ‘shoot first’ stance are revealed, she can never pretend that those things aren’t real anymore. But many of her friends and family in the novel, like the people in the cave, can’t appreciate that reality, or deny its existence entirely and shut her out of their lives. It takes a dynamic movement and a choice to speak out publicly for anyone to change their minds.

So if you’re considering writing a social issues novel where you want your character’s representation, point of view or position in society to break through and stand out, look to Plato’s Cave to guide you in how others may respond to that breakthrough, and how your character’s emotional journey could be informed by it.