"Wool" is partially inspired by Plato's "Allegory of the Cave," a famous ancient thought experiment about the nature of perception and reality. In Plato's allegory, a group of individuals is forced to live in a cave and witness shadow puppetry on the walls; they believe these shadows constitute reality, as this is all they know. Plato thus argues that a person's understanding of reality is limited by the limited information provided by their senses and education, and this understanding is not necessarily an accurate picture of the outside world.
Similarly, the citizens of the silo perceive the world through a single, blurred image on a screen. Due to controlled information, they cannot access books or historical records and accept the narratives they are given. However, as Allison and Holston learn, the silo's presentation of the outside world could be distorted or even an illusion.
