The author applies the theory and the language of Melanie Klein to the play. Timon's beneficence and his misanthropy are rooted in the paranoid-schizoid position; in this position the sometimes gratifying and good, sometimes frustrating and bad breasts are incorporated. The child is consequently possessed by both protective and persecutory objects, and begins to experience depression. He tends to deny this in a manic defense which in effect denies the destruction of the bad breast. The author runs the same risk of simplistic absurdity as Melanie Klein in reducing the play to the infant's supposed preoccupation with breast introjects.