This story details a conversation between Socrates, Plato's teacher, and one of his students. This conversation was, and still can be, an attempt to "show in a figure to what extent our nature is enlightened or unenlightened" (Plato 333). This conversation goes on to tell the story of three humans who have been chained and living in an underground cave all their lives and because of this have never been able to see the real world. The prisoners' reality has become the interpretation of the shapes that the prisoners see passing on the walls, but in reality the shapes are only shadows of “vases, and statues, and wooden animal figures” carried by people who live above ground. (Plato 333) Eventually one of these humans is freed from his chains and brought to the surface. Plato explains that after the human being is brought to the surface, he will have difficulty adapting to the exposure of the world around him, but after learning about the world above he will begin to think of his old companions in the cave and try to become enlightened. them too. (335) Coelho's enlightening journey is comparable to Plato's Myth of the Cave. Coelho's cave only begins to manifest due to his initial ignorance of the world around him, but diminishes and eventually dissipates as Coelho begins to learn about himself. He states: “The springs of creation flow in ways that are to some extent unpredictable. . . Writers are like pregnant women. They made love with life and had a child without knowing who the father is." (Coelho 2) in his interview, Coelho talks about enlightenment and the path to God by saying: “Religion exists to satisfy the desire to belong to the community, to find brothers and sisters. But it does not show us the path to God. This path starts from within each of us. It's up to us to untangle the thread..." (Coelho