What it means to be a beast is not necessarily found in appearance but in the nature of somebody’s behavior. One of the most commonly used words and important words used in Timon of Athens is beast. The term beast is used several times in the Shakespearean play, Timon of Athens and is important to the ongoing themes of the story. Timon faces a great fall from grace when he loses his money, land and friends and subsequently his sanity. According to the English Oxford Dictionary, the term beast is defined as “a brutal, savage man; a man acting in any manner unworthy of a reasonable creature.” There are several example of Timon and his so-called friends in Athens behaving like beasts. There is a strong apparent tie between being a “beast” and misanthropy, which is hatred toward mankind. The play demonstrates how men can be beasts and how they can become like beasts.
Upon leaving Athens, Timon has seemed to have lost his gentle nature and reasoning, acting like a beast. The bitter and disgruntled Timon declared himself as a Misanthropes and that he absolutely despised mankind. He officially disowned his friends, wishes for the demise of their society since a beast has no friends and can bring destruction for everyone and everything. Timon’s personality changes drastically when he goes to live in the wilderness and disregards humanity almost completely. When Timon left civilization for the wilderness, he gives a speech and intentionally bad advice which would destroy civilized life as he knew it. The advice he gives goes beyond what any reasonable man would give any other person. He tells the people to violate their taught principals and tells the people this:
“Be general leprosy! Breath infect breath,
That their society, as their friendship, may
Be merely poison! Nothing I’ll bear from thee
Bu nakedness.”
Here, he tells the people to be vile and horrible and also to spread their negative influence in order for others to be the same. He is acting like a beast in the scene for his advice as he is giving advice that is beyond reason. No reasonable person would give such advice but Timon is not acting upon reason but instead is choosing to act upon his emotions, alike an animal. Here, he’s like a disgruntled fiancé who throws their engagement ring into the ocean, he gives up any ties to his old life to begin a new life away from people.
Timon at one point had the behavior and reasoning of a man but had changed because of how his so-called friends treated him. He had been overly trusting and generous to his friends and giving tremendous gifts and funds with the belief that his companions would support his friends if ever the day he need financial help would come. Timon’s cynical philosopher friend, Apemantus, had warned him of his foolishness and of his spineless friends. Apemantus remarks, “what a number of men eats Timon, and he sees them not,” Apemantus sees Timon’s friends as what they truly are; they are the lions biting chunks away and the leeches sucking away his livelihood. Apemantus is one of the few characters in the play that never tries to take advantage of Timon and in fact openly tells him that he is being taken advantage of. Yet, Timon never listens to him. When Timon learns that he is out of money, none of his friends tries to help him. When his friends are approached for help, they come up with several excuses on why they could not help Timon. Apemantus saw this happen a mile away but is virtually unable to stop Timon allowing his so-called friends to devour him metaphorically. The reason why Timon’s friends are beasts because of this is because of how brutal they are by watching Timon squirm in distress, losing his lands and not even budging a muscle or a teardrop for him. The friends continues the brutality as they still expect to be spoiled as Timon invites them all to dinner. Timon tells them they are “detested parasites, courteous destroyers, affable wolves and meek bears,” meaning they appear friendly but they had served as predators in the disguise of friendly and harmless company. All of which are beasts but not in the sense of being wild but of destruction and of corrosion. None of his friends even go after him when Timon runs away into the woods.
Upon discovering gold in an empty cave, Timon could have used the gold to rebuild what he lost but he does not. Instead, he chooses to use the money to destroy humanity instead of rebuilding himself. An example would be the interaction with the burglars, whom Timon pays to go rob a home. Nobody in their right mind would pay somebody to do something that has no benefit to them or to benefit somebody else, it is not reasonable. Timon simply does this to be brutish and bring some sort of suffering to another person. Another would be the interaction would be with the prostitutes whom he pays and tells them to spread their sexually transmitted diseases with the people of Athens. Another scenario where Timon is paying for an act that does not benefit him or another person. He is paying for the, to spread diseases which at the time had no cures and often had lifelong health consequences. Nobody in their right mind would pay somebody to do this, only a brutish and unreasonable person would. It seems like when his friends in Athens left him to deal with his problems on his own, it broke his gentle nature and stripped away his willingness to reason. Yet no doubt the greatest example of Timon acting like a beast is the funding of a war upon Athens. Alcibiades is furious with the Athenian government after a friend received an unfair sentence. Alcibiades took it in his own hands and decided to destroy Athens. When asking Timon for help in destroying Athens, the beastly man does not hesitate to aid in the destruction of what remains of his old life.
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