Timon Of Athens Question # 2

[Bookworm5589]

"O you gods! Is yond despised and ruinous man my lord? Full of decay and failing? O monument and wonder of good deeds evily bestowed! What an alteration of honour has desp'rate want made!


From this passage, how is Timon described?


1.Formerly passive, now violent.
2.Formerly esteemed, now reviled
3.Formerly wealthy, now destitute
4.Formerly complacent, now melancholy

I have absolutely no idea here. I'm glad that this homework is just practice but it's practice for a test that will be, sadly, exactly similar.

Any help would be most appreciated.

[birdeen's call]

Let's try to work it out then. Certainly, no one is going to do your homework for you, but we can try to help you do it.

What do you understand of the text? Are there words or phrases that you don't know in it? What are they? Have you looked them up? If you have, try to explain why you still don't understand or aren't sure what they mean.

Can you eliminate some of the answers?

[Bookworm5589]

I understand, I think, a good portion of it. The first part "Yond despised and ruinous man my lord" To me that says he has become pretty much what it says, a ruined man because of what has happened to him and he's also despised. "Full of decay and failing" to me that means everything in his life has been destroyed and he's failed to correct it.

"O monument and wonder of good deeds evily bestowed! What an alteration of honour has desp'rate want made!" This part I don't really understand. I think it means that the good deeds he has done for others (in the context of the entire poem) were only given because he was eager to please perhaps.

To me, I've ruled out Answers 1, he hasn't been seen to be passive and isn't now violent. Answer 2 Can also be ruled out I think because he isn't abusing language, not that I can tell. Answers 3 and 4 are sticking out to me. I'm thinking 4 because he was eager to please others but is now melancholy because of the ordeals he's gone through, answer 3 also, however, seems to fit because he was wealthy but now is destitute, no shelter, clothing, food. So those two answers to me seem like they'd fit but I'm really not sure.

[birdeen's call]

Thank you, Bookworm. It would have been better if you had posted this analysis in your first post.

Yes, he bestowed good deeds "evilly" (note the spelling), Flavius says because he disapproves of the way Timon acted.

You have ruled out the first answer correctly. There is nothing in the passage about passiveness or violence. As for the second answer, your reasoning seems to be based on a misunderstanding. The answer is

2.Formerly esteemed, now reviled.

"Reviled" doesn't mean abusing language or even using abusive language. That would be "reviling". "Reviled" means assailed with abusive language. Is Timon assailed with abusive language? Note that you are asked to answer this question using that short passage only.

You like answers 3 and 4 because you believe that they describe Timon well. But are you using external knowledge to determine that, or are you just using the passage?

[Bookworm5589]

Thank you for pointing that out, I see I misunderstood the word. To me, then, the second answer does not sound correct because he is not.

For answers 3 and 4, in a way I am using the idea from the whole poem as I have read it, but I understand that it is not what the question is asking, though, with the knowledge from the entire poem in mind I suppose that might be what is making the question difficult. Thinking on it now with just the passage in mind, answer 3 sticks out to me because the passage is saying how his life has fallen apart, like "What an alteration of honour has desp'rate want made" this to me sounds as if it is saying he's gone from honour to now seeking whatever he can to survive.

[birdeen's call]

I agree with you. You could argue that there is no mention in the passage that he was wealthy previously. But I think we can agree that Flavius' words imply that. He asks, "Is yond despised and ruinous man my lord?" He wouldn't say that if Timon hadn't been wealthy.