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).