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Beware of Fair-Weather Friends
The first key theme in Timon of Athens concerns the meaning of friendship. Timon is a man with a strong sense of what friendship means. He believes that friendship can only be genuinely secured through mutual acts of generosity. People who care about each other will show they care through their actions. Timon expresses this philosophy in the opening act, where he asks, “what need we have any friends if we should ne’er have need of ‘em?” (1.2.92–93). However clearly expressed in these words, Timon’s philosophy of friendship runs aground for two reasons. The first has to do with Timon himself. As an enthusiastic philanthropist, he engages in extravagant acts of giving that prove unsustainable and financially irresponsible. Furthermore, Timon’s extravagant gifts are never reciprocated, partly because he asks for them not to be, and partly because no one can match his seemingly boundless wealth. This presents the second reason for Timon’s downfall. Without a history of mutual exchange, it isn’t entirely surprising that Timon’s beneficiaries are reluctant to become his benefactor. Even so, their failure to come through in Timon’s true moment of need is undoubtedly a moral and ethical stain on these men.
When Timon is faced with the fact that those who benefited from his generosity now refuse to help him, he experiences a profound sadness that presents itself as a bitter rage. No longer able to trust in the genuineness of any social bonds, he undergoes a transformation from Timon the philanthropist to Timon the misanthropist. He confronts his fair-weather friends, curses them, abandons Athens, and sets himself up in a cave in the woods, far from the accursed company of his fellow humans. Yet even as Timon’s disenchantment leads him to curse his fellow men and disavow all women as prostitutes, it’s important to note that he still has three men who care about him. First is the military general Alcibiades, who finds common cause with Timon in their shared experience of Athenian ingratitude. Second is the cynic Apemantus, who has long warned Timon that flatterers aren’t the same thing as friends, and who seeks him out in the woods to warn him against taking his misanthropy too far. Third is the steward Flavius, whose loyal devotion to Timon is clear throughout. In these figures, the play offers three examples of what true friendship can look like.
The Conflict Between Economic Modes
The second key theme in Timon of Athens relates to issues of money, value, and exchange—in short, economics. Two distinct economic modes are in conflict throughout the play, and this conflict exacerbates the interpersonal tensions that arise, particularly between Timon and his fair-weather friends. Timon’s problems arguably stem from the fact that he operates in a gift economy, which is a system of mutual exchange where reciprocal acts of generosity establish and sustain social bonds. This explains why his understanding of friendship is rooted in the belief that, if he is generous with others, they will be generous with him—particularly if he ever falls on hard times. By contrast, most others in the play operate according to the logic of a financial economy, in which wealth is managed and grown through relations of credit, debt, and interest. This latter logic is fundamentally incompatible with Timon’s philosophy of friendship as reciprocal exchange. In fact, it’s the incompatibility between these logics that leads to the perverse circumstance where Timon is paying more than twice for his generosity. He takes out loans to pay for gifts that he then gives to his lenders, all the while owing those same lenders interest on the original loan.
Timon’s transformation from philanthropist to misanthropist is occasioned not by his bankruptcy, but by the revelation that his so-called friends don’t see “bare friendship” as sufficient financial security. Whereas Timon had wanted to use his wealth to create meaningful social bonds, everyone else simply wanted to grow their investment portfolios. Disgusted by their self-serving hypocrisy and greed, Timon renounces all of humanity. When he does so, his philanthropic mindset undergoes a perverse change. One day, while digging for roots, Timon happens upon a cache of gold. After discoursing at length on the corrupting power of wealth, he decides to capitalize on gold’s destructive capacity. He hands out money to everyone who comes to him in the woods, funding any effort or behavior that he thinks will bring Athens to ruin. No longer invested in a gift economy and disgusted by the cold heartlessness of the financial economy, Timon attempts to bring about universal economic ruin.
The Importance of Moderation
Timon is not a man who does anything half-heartedly. In the first half of the play, when he happily acts the philanthropist, he is generous to a fault, giving away his fortune while also going into debt. In the second half of the play, when he embraces the bitter attitude of the misanthrope, he commits so thoroughly to his renunciation of humankind that he curses even those concerned with his well-being. For Timon, there seems to be no middle ground, and regardless of which perspective he adopts, it seems destined to lead him to ruin. In the case of his philanthropy, the giving of extravagant gifts leads inescapably toward bankruptcy. Even though his generosity is tied to a philosophy of friendship in which social bonds are secured through reciprocal acts of giving, most people around him seem to agree that he takes it too far. In the play’s opening scene, two lords discuss Timon’s seemingly unending bounty and note that, however, respectable, his generosity “outgoes / The very heart of kindness” (1.1.277–78). Many others express similar concerns with Timon’s lack of moderation, including his steward Flavius and one of the lords he approaches for a loan.
Whereas Timon thinks his downfall results from a lack of true friends, from another vantage his bankruptcy is a direct result of his immoderation. Yet because he doesn’t see his problem as one of excessiveness, he ends up simply taking his lack of moderation in another direction. Thus, Timon redirects his extreme philanthropy into an extreme misanthropy. So deeply embittered is he that he doesn’t simply confront those who’ve disappointed him—he renounces all of humankind and retreats to a cave in the woods. However, it isn’t the case that Timon truly has no friends left. Alcibiades, Apemantus, and Flavius all demonstrate some degree of loyalty and fellow feeling with Timon. Even so, with the once exception of his former steward, he sends them all away with a curse. Apemantus attempts to counsel Timon to be moderate in his misanthropy, telling him to avoid excessive cynicism: “Shame not these woods / By putting on the cunning of a carper. . . . Do not assume my likeness” (4.3.208–209, 218). In the end, though, Timon’s misanthropy never softens, and it leads him to such extreme bitterness that he essentially wills himself to death. Timon’s tragic flaw is, ultimately, his immoderation.
