Truman Burbank's Reality

I first saw The Truman Show  during a family movie night when I was little. As you can imagine, the idea of a team of people controlling every aspect of another’s life was confusing to me. At such a young age, the idea of questioning reality was mind boggling.  In the 1998 movie, The Truman Show, Truman Burbank has unknowingly been the star of a hit TV show since the day he was born. Although the show is not scripted, he is living among actors and he has been living under the total control of the producer of the show. This raises the question, is Truman Burbank’s reality indeed a reality?

                        

Plato’s Republic questions the idea of an absolute reality through the Allegory of the Cave.  He writes of hypothetical prisoners living in a cave for their entire life in shadows and never moving their limbs or neck. This takes place in the real world, however their reality is far different from those who live out in society above the ground. (Plato 514) Plato writes “such men would hold that the truth is nothing other than the shadows of artificial things” (Plato 518). Plato argues that the truth is an individual experience defined by what we perceive to be reality.

While not an exact correlation, Truman’s life is similar to those prisoners living in the cave. Truman’s experiences on the show illustrate human’s need to explore. His life is a continuous controlled normalcy and when he starts to notice this, he explores what may lie beyond. His obsession with getting off of the island to visit Fiji and explore the world illustrates this. But what happens when he exits the “cave” that is The Truman Show and enters the real world? *Spoiler Alert!* The movie ends with Truman exiting the large set of the show, so we never actually see how he his life would change.

           

With help from Plato and The Allegory of the Cave, one could guess how things would turn out in a Truman Show sequel. When exiting the set, Truman’s sense of reality he has fostered his entire life will clash with the reality of the outside world.  Cristof, the creator of The Truman Show, says, “I've given Truman the chance to lead a normal life. The world, the place you live in is the sick place. Seahaven is the way the world should be”(The Truman Show). Truman’s life has, in theory, been a utopian society where nothing is fake, “It’s merely controlled” (The Truman Show). Plato writes, “Don’t you suppose he’d be at a loss and believe that what was seen before is truer that what is now shown?” (Plato 515).  While this may be true for a prisoner exiting a cave, Truman’s situation is a little more complicated given that he made the discovery of the falseness that made up his life.  Even while being controlled by others, Truman Burbank’s reality is still a reality.

 Plato argues that those who live outside of the cave would experience the same issues adjusting to the cave as those exiting would have with adjusting to the outside world. This illustrates reality as a personal concept.  I think The creator of The Truman Show puts it best when he says to the public, “We accept the reality of the world with which we are presented, it's as simple as that”(The Truman Show).

Weir, Peter, dir. The Truman Show . 1998. Film. 18 Nov 2012.

Plato, . Republic. 380 BC. 514-518. Web.