SOURCE: Tinker, Michael. “Theme in Timon of Athens.” In Shakespeare's Late Plays: Essays in Honor of Charles Crow, edited by Richard C. Tobias and Paul G. Zolbrod, pp. 76-88. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1974.

In the following essay, Tinker explores Timon's view of friendship within the framework of the play's larger theme, which Tinker contends is “man shall not live by bread alone.”

Timon of Athens has provoked an extraordinary divergence of critical opinion.¹ Contrary to those critics who find Timon incomplete and disorganized, I believe the play is highly structured. The theme, simply stated, is “Man shall not live by bread alone.” That theme is brought out by the imagery, the plot structure, and the inversion of the theme in the protagonist, that is, by the representation of a man who does live by bread alone.

With regard to the structure of the play, Una Ellis-Fermor calls Timon...