Even though Middlemarch is described as a web, its residents are secretly paranoid and often do not form truly intimate connections with each other. How are we to understand Middlemarchers’ paranoia?
Passage from Book 4, Chapter 37:
“Poor Mr Casaubon felt (and must not we, being impartial, feel with him a little?) that no man had juster cause for disgust and suspicion than he. Young Ladislaw, he was sure, meant to defy and annoy him, meant to win Dorothea’s confidence and sow her mind with disrespect, and perhaps aversion, towards her husband” (375).
The above passage describes Mr Casaubon’s discontent with Ladislaw after receiving a letter from him, in which Ladislaw declares that nothing can restrain him in his choosing where to live.
Mr Casaubon assumes himself to be fully justified to suspect Ladislaw due to the latter’s visiting Dorothea and possibly instigating conflicts between him and Dorothea, even though Mr Casaubon only considers his point of view and deems himself the most justifiable person in the whole world. This misplaced self-righteousness suggests that Middlemarchers’ paranoia can be attributed to their bias against others. In the passage, the narrator argues that readers also have their own prejudice and partly understand Mr Casaubon’s feelings towards Ladislaw even when they are supposed to be “impartial”.
Besides, the paranoia manifested in the passage suggests Mr Casaubon’s selfish, arrogant attitude towards his wife because he endeavours to make her absolutely obedient to him by eliminating possible sources of interference from Ladislaw. He tries so hard to maintain the status quo that he is willing to vilify his cousin as an obstacle to his marriage. The paranoia in Middlemarch can thus be conceived as an egocentric attack on enemies seeking to disrupt or even destroy other Middlemarchers’ lives.
Mr Casaubon relates Ladislaw’s behaviour to Dorothea, who, consciously or not, can be influenced by Ladislaw. In other words, Mr Casaubon wants to be a more important man to Dorothea than Ladislaw. The competition between these two men suggests that there is fierce rivalry among Middlemarchers and that they always want to beat their rivals so as to develop a sense of authority or superiority. If they are partly defeated, they will endeavour to prepare means of revenge so as to protect their own rights. As the competition between them becomes more intense, they start feeling paranoid and believe that there is always a lot of unavoidable competition and that their authority is built upon defeating other members of the community.
The fact that Mr Casaubon finds Ladislaw disgusting suggests that the former assumes human nature to be deceptive and unreliable. Mr Casaubon’s perspective on Ladislaw provides another means of understanding Middlemarchers’ paranoia: they are pessimistic on human nature and their pessimism causes them not to trust each other. Even though they pretend to be indifferent to others on the outside, they keep their inner disgust and maintain distance from other members of the community.
Middlemarchers’ paranoia is also a result of the description of Middlemarch as a web because every Middlemarcher’s action will certainly bring reaction from others and, in Mr Casaubon’s case, he is clearly irritated by Ladislaw’s behaviour and cavalier attitude, and he must seek retribution against him. If Middlemarchers are not so closely connected, Mr Casaubon’s hatred towards Ladislaw may not be so intense and implacable. Middlemarch, both as a town and as a web, draws its residents together, shaping their lives and relationship with each other, for better or for worse.
In short, Middlemarchers’ paranoia can be understood as a manifestation of their inner cruelty, competitive nature, and intricate relationship. The connections between Middlemarchers are mainly built on duplicity and complicated motives; but they, on the surface, choose not to directly confront each other, creating a sense of self-justified dishonesty that is sometimes regarded as necessary evil.