The Allegory of the Cave is an allegory use by the Greek philosopher Plato in his work The Republic. The allegory of the cave is told and then interpreted by the character Socrates at the beginning of Book 7 (514a–520a). It is related to Plato's metaphor of the sun (507b–509c) and the analogy of the divided line (509d–513e) which immediately precede it at the end of Book 6. Allegories are summarized in the viewpoint of dialectic at the end of book VII and VIII (531d-534e). The allegory of the cave is also commonly known as Myth of the Cave, Metaphor of the Cave or the Parable of the Cave.