Shoes & Umbrellas

Samantha Shepherd
English 103
Cerritos College
Post #2

After reading Homonyms, by Giorgio Agamben, I felt there was a correlatio between what he wrote and The Allegory of the Cave. I felt that like The...Cave, Homonyms was talking about how there are varying realities for one idea or object. As I discussed in my last post, I mentioned the differences in realities that one may have through their experiences whether they are raised in a suburban city or a violent one. I feel that Agamben took this idea of varied realities and applied it to a specific word. For example, Agamben explains that the word red can be more than just its definition: a color. It can also signify blood, Christmas or even an emotion like anger. One of the things that struck me as being the most similar idea between the two pieces of literature was that I wrote down in my notes (pertaining to the seventh paragraph of Homonyms) was that you can't distinguish an object because of its place in "reality". Someone in class demonstrated this concept to me by mentioning how the word "shoe" will always consist of the same letters s-h-o-e, but the meaning can change. Just how word meanings develop and change over time, the same can be applied to the simple noun "shoe". Now how does this relate to The Cave? Well, the many prisoners were not able to distinguish objects that passed by them because of their place in their reality-their chains and imprisonment. They were only confined to seeing the shadows of objects. You can take an object like an umbrella and it will create its own shadow. Now, you can also get construction paper and cut it out to look like an umbrella and placing it in the light it can create the same shadow shape. No matter what the object truly is, as long as the shadow is the same that is its reality, that is its truth. That shape of the shadow of an umbrella will always be the same, but how you got to that shape can always be changed as well.