Reading Adler's List

From one extreme to the other, Timon goes from beloved and gratuitous gift-giver to famed misanthrope. The connection between these two extremes is the selfishness of his friends. Those willing to take from him express no genuine willingness to give back.

I didn’t walk away with much from this play. The only real interesting characters are Alciabiades and Flavius. Alciabiades only because his role in the play seems unnecessary yet Shakespeare spends a good amount of time on his part. Flavius stands out simply because he appears to be the one true friend even though he is Timon’s servant. I suppose one could dwell on whether loyalty is the sole expression of friendship.

Maybe I’m missing something deeper here, but the gist seems to be that people generally suck.