Three Athenians’ Escapes In Shakespeare’s Timon Of Athens

This thesis attempts to interpret Shakespeare’s Timon of Athens as a story of three Athenians’ escaping from Athens and to explore the reasons and results of their escapes.The three Athenians analyzed are Timon,Alcibiades and Apemantus.In the process of analyzing the theme of “escape”,this thesis tries to throw some light upon Shakespeare’s views of these Athenians’ escapes in his play of Timon of Athens.The thesis is divided into four chapters.The first chapter explores the decaying values in the Athenian City-State that have caused the three Athenians’ escapes.One value is the money-worship and the other is the spirit of loan contract.The second chapter gives a detailed analysis of these three Athenians’ escapes from Athens including Timon’s change from a philanthropist to a misanthropist,Alcibiades from an Athenian guard to an Athenian foe,and Apemantus from a wise man to a cynic.The third chapter talks about the results of these Athenians’ escapes.On the one hand,the thesis argues that the final endings of these Athenians witness their failures:Timon dies in great despair;Alcibiades returns to Athens after compromising with the Senate;Apenmantus ends up by cynicism.On the other hand,through exploring the reasons of these failed escapes,the thesis intends to explain that these three Athenians’ personalities are most responsible for their failures.Timon is an immature man who fails to express his emotion properly in addition to extreme love and extreme hate for Athens;Alcibiades is a mature man and his maturity can be seen in his more wise choice of returning to Athens instead of leaving it forever;Apemantus’ s skeptical attitude towards everything makes him find no place that he is sincerely satisfied with,so he has to stay in Athens.The fourth chapter offers a tentative speculation on Shakespeare’s views on the relationship between man and state implied in the “escape” theme of the play: man could not really escape from his state because it is impossible for an individual to survive away from his community,so it is reasonable for a man to view the good side and evil side of the state dialectically;furthermore,the development of the community depends on the individual’s supervision.Thus man should keep the proper love of the state,exactly as Alcibiades’ s return to Athens after the compromise with the Senate.