SLUH Junior Theology Course '07-'08
Faith and Morality...
By Kevin Casey
Web Assign 1: My Cave
As he sat eating his chicken wings, Kyle looked blankly around his high school’s solid, cavernous cafeteria. It was like every other lunch period, every other day at school, ever since he entered high school.
Being the youngest and having three older brothers and one older sister, Kyle, like most of the guys he hung out with, had entered life with a set, irreversible role. Two of his brothers were at prominent universities on football scholarships after becoming legacies at their high schools. His sister had graduated top of her class, and, like one of the other brothers, had served as STUCO president at her school as a senior. All three brothers were known for their keg parties and cheerleader girlfriends. In short, Kyle entered the school hierarchy as “cool” and could do no less then live up to and exceed this standard he was chained to.
So as he sat eating lunch with the rest of the jocks, not hearing what they were saying, high school life went on as it had since he was a freshman. Guys moved up and down the aisles between tables, calling to each other back and forth, but Kyle didn’t see them. To him and the rest of his elite posse at the table, everyone else might as well have been shadows in his world, transparent and meaningless. Sure, Kyle noticed them, but he had stopped thinking about them a long time ago. He and his table had given them their titles before the end of the first quarter of freshman year: the nerds, the losers, the wanna-be’s, the freaks–the list went on and on.
After so long, though, these titles were all the Kyle could see in his classmates. He did not know of any other way that things could function if not like this.
Yet, one lunch period, Kyle was taken out of the cafeteria. He had made a witty comment about his theology teacher in class that, although others in the class thought was hilarious, the teacher did not think was too funny. So on that day Kyle was forced to eat in the commons, where his theology teacher chaperoned and the lowest-of-the-lows ate.
As he made his way down the hallway and got closer and closer to the tiny lunch area, his stomach began to sink. His steps slowed; he had never been this far down the hallway in his whole high school career. He began to look at the walls, seeing the posters hanging on them but not thinking about what they said.
Then out of nowhere, his tray slammed into something hard in front of him. His chili cheese fries flew up onto his football jersey, oozing down its sleek surface. Not that he noticed this, for he had been knocked backwards by such a force that he lost his balance and fell, spilling his soda and cracking his elbow on the tiled floor. The pain was horrible.
“Watch where you’re going, moron,” said the massive guy he had ran into. All around him people, none of whom he recognized, were laughing, and his face flushed. Despite being the most popular guy in the room, he could not remember having ever been as embarrassed as he was then.
He squinted at the bright fluorescent lights above him and, despite his now-aching body, slowly rose from the floor. He retrieved some napkins and was mopping up his mess, his stomach rumbling from hunger and his shins turning red from kneeling on the hard floor, when someone knelt down beside him.
It was a scrawny kid with thick glasses, and without saying a word he began to help Kyle clean things up. When they were finished, the boy went to go sit back down at his table, and Kyle meekly followed. It was only he and this boy at the whole table, but Kyle could barely find a comfortable position on the benches. He banged his knee, causing more pain, and the whole table shook.
The boy was had been sitting alone, working on algebra, before Kyle had gotten there. Kyle could not help but stare at him, and wonder why this boy would have bothered helping him. As he thought about it more and more, he became more grateful. Finally, collecting all his nerve, he struck up a conversation with the boy, Peter.
He took a sudden interest in Peter, who listened calmly as they talked, never trying to be sarcastic or make some sexual joke out of anything that was said, like Kyle’s usual lunch mates. Kyle was surprised to find that when the bell rang he sincerely did not want to go to class. He wanted to stay and talk to this geek, this kid, this classmate of his. Peter even showed him a new deserted way to get to the lockers so that they got there before barely anyone else.
As he was pulling his books out, he thought about this new lunch experience with wonder. What if there were other kids like Peter in his class, guys he did not even know about? He had felt he could actually relate to this geek more then he ever had with any of his other friends. In fact, as he thought more about it, he became more and more excited to tell the other guys about it, like it was some extraordinary discovery.
Before Kyle had gotten all of his books out, though, the guys were already surrounding him, asking him just how bad sitting in the “untouchables” section had been. He turned around but immediately felt closed in and uncomfortable, smothered.
When they had finally stopped teasing and hounding him, Kyle began answering their questions. “It really wasn’t that bad. I sat with this really great guy I’d never even seen before, but it turns out he’s in our class. He looks kind of nerdy, but he was actually pretty cool. His name was Peter something, I can’t remember his last name.”
“Peter Keener?” one guy asked incredulously.
“Yeah, that was it,” replied Kyle, “Why do you say it like that.”
They all began to smirk at him. “You’ve never heard of Peter Keener? Keener the Weener?” one asked as everyone else laughed. “He the biggest loser in school. Sitting with him is like social suicide or something.”
Kyle became mad then. He did not know what to say. How could he explain it to people so insensitive and shallow, that would not even pretend to listen to him? Had he, before this accidental lunch, really been just like them? He could not believe it, he was so ashamed.
The others’ laughing finally began to quiet down, though, as Peter walked by. Their smirks grew bigger as they all turned their gaze to Kyle.
Kyle’s gaze did not return theirs, though. “Peter, wait up!” he called, and ran to catch up, leaving the group of losers behind him.
Image Source
Brief Comparison of My Cave and Plato's Allegory
Just as the main character in Plato’s Allegory of the Cave grew up prisoner, only allowed to see certain aspects of the things around, so was it with Kyle, as he took on a pre-determined role for him from his older brothers and sisters. When the prisoner was freed from the darkness, though, he suffered pain from the bright light of the sun, just as Kyle suffered physical pain and embarrassment as he made his way to the lunch commons. Once there, Kyle became adjusted and was shown something great, that the people he automatically considered inferior could be just like him and his friends- and even better. This is similar to the prisoner seeing things for how they truly are in the world. When both the prisoner and Kyle want to carry these truths back to those they know in darkness, though, they are immediately rejected and laughed at. In the end, though, the “light” still greeted both Kyle and the prisoner when they leave their “caves” behind them.
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