Essay Questions

Why did Cipriano move to the Center?

Cipriano and his daughter had a business together; they were producing dishes. When his main client, the Center, breaks economic relations with them, they go bankrupt. The Center says that they had made their decision because of an advancement of people wanting plastic utensils, because they were more “modern”.

When his daughter, Marta, tries to save the business from perishing by trading the pots with dolls, the business dives further into bankruptcy. When Marcal, Cipriano’s son in law, moves to the Center, and ask Cipriano to come along, which he does because that’s his last potion, if he doesn’t wish to become a beggar, which is how Cipriano and his daughter end up moving to the Center.

How is the Center described?

The Center is described as a place similar to the new cutlery Cipriano’s pottery replaced by. It is “modern”, “effective” and “comfortable”. Instead of describing the Center as shopping mall, which is what it sounds like, it is descripted as an ideological institution, where capitalism flourishes. Everything is artificial, designed to entertain and please, making sure that the inhabitants every want is met as they are entirely cut off from the outside world.

What does Saramago wish to preach with The Cave?

Saramago is known for using allusions to prove a know point. In The Cave he explains and retells Plato’s Cave in a story of a poor potter and his family. Saramago makes his characters so lifelike that the reader is supposed to be able to relate and realize the same things that the protagonist does; the cave his here.

Instead of being living people meeting each other, we make avatars - shadows - of ourselves in social media where we communicate, judge and live. We are looking at a blank wall, without seeing the world around us, connected only to the media as a model of the life we live. Saramago was trying to tell people that we are the people in the cave.