This Little Light of Mine

"It is a light that gives little light."

With regard to "the myth of the cave," Irigaray presents an important point about the artificial nature of the light that is present in the cave. When considered within the view that we are in fact the inhabitants of the cave, there are immense implications with regard to the way in which we view our own world. To assume that the description of the cave is intended to mirror our own world, it is crucial to ask, from what angle is our light shining? From what perspective is our world manipulated to represent? At the end of this particular section (A Fire in the Image of A Sun), Irigaray addresses some of these concerns by stating: “For if the cave is made in the image of the world, the world […] is equally made in the image of the cave.” Thus, it is not an individual perspective that shapes our environment, but one that is collective and reoccurring. As a result, to understand our world is to understand it as a construction, one that is both an original and a duplicate, altered by the light we chose to shine on it.