“Plato, Again” is one of the more poignant depictions of the intersectionality of oppression that I have seen. It successfully shows the ways discrimination based on race, gender, and the functioning of one’s body interact in various ways. It focuses on the discrimination Caroline Moore faces after beginning treatment for her breast cancer, although the discrimination is not isolated to her illness, but also to her race and gender.
Throughout the piece, Moore makes reference to Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. To those around her, living in the shadows, Moore’s shadow is the only part of her that they see. Symbolically, her “shadow” is her cancer; no one in her work environment is able to look beyond her illness to interact with her in the same way they did beforehand. She notes multiple times on the ways people treat her differently compared to before knowledge of her cancer was available. Her boss, Bill Densk, had previously never paid her so much attention that she felt it necessary to examine him closely enough to have a good idea of what he looked like; she was a respected employee with a master’s degree in computer programming and enough experience and knowledge in her work to put her into a managerial position. Yet, now that she has begun treatment for her sickness, it is as if Densk has suddenly noticed that she is not just a good worker, but a black woman, and one with an illness. During their meeting, he touched the place where her breast was removed, a clear violation of her personal space and an act of sexual harassment. However, there is a palpable shift in the dynamic between the two, and it is clear Densk no longer cares if he oversteps his boundaries. Before, she was a black woman, but one capable of doing her job without interruption. After being removed from the workplace by her treatments, she is less valuable to the company, as she will be removed again in the future, with less free time to dedicate to her position, and so Densk no longer sees her as vital. She is now simply supplemental, all due to her illness.
Lori, another character in the story, unsubtly changes her behavior towards Caroline. Previously a shy spoken, quiet woman who treated her with respect, Lori becomes progressively more comfortable in exerting her authority over Caroline, who has been demoted to being beneath her. This showed what I thought was an interesting dichotomy; I had expected Lori to be more sympathetic towards Caroline, because they are both women in a male-dominated workplace. However, Caroline’s absence during her treatment has allowed Lori to rise in power within the environment, power she is not afraid of exerting over Caroline. It seemed almost as if Lori was transformed into a different person than Caroline previously knew. They no longer had the solidarity of both being women, because Caroline was, in her eyes, no longer another woman. To Lori, a disabled woman is almost a different being entirely, one that she feels no sympathy or need for solidarity towards. Lori is more than happy to stay within the cave, because she benefits directly from Caroline’s stepping outside of it.
At no point is the allegory of the cave more prevalent than in the beginning of the story, when Caroline is watching young adults playing in the nice weather, and she observes that a young black man is “laughing too hard to succeed”. Caroline believes he is only seeing the shadows of the world because his laughter must mean that he does not fully grasp the harshness of a world in which an illness can allow others to take everything from you. So jaded by her experiences is she that she cannot perceive another’s happiness without understanding it as ignorance. Her own harsh reality, and the shift in the way others have treated her because of it, has irrevocably changed her idea of what truth is, and her own life in general.
Word Count: 667
I pledge: Aspen Garritson
