Quantifying tonal analysis in The Mayor of Casterbridge

The Mayor of Casterbridge constitutes an especially difficult challenge to interpretive criticism. The main interpretive models that have been made available for Mayor presuppose passional involvement with a protagonist and seek resolution in some kind of affirmation embodied in the protagonist's own experience-an affirmation of ethical order, grandeur, freedom, dignity, human amelioration, or a more complete humanity. Using an online questionnaire, we collected data from 85 readers about the characters in Mayor and about the readers' emotional responses to the characters. This data suggests an interpretive structure very different from that which is embodied in the interpretive history of the novel.