H05074 "THE MAYOR OD CASTERBRIDGE" QUESTIONNAIRE- 9/12/05 - HARDY FORUM ARCHIVES _____________________________________________

H05074 "THE MAYOR OD CASTERBRIDGE" QUESTIONNAIRE- 9/12/05 - HARDY FORUM ARCHIVES ____________________________________________________________________________

From: jcarroll@umsl.edu

Subject: Mayor of Casterbridge questionnaire

Date: September 12, 2005 1:09:36 AM PDT

We'd like to issue an invitation to all our colleagues who have a professional interest in teaching or writing about Thomas Hardy.

We are a group made up of literary scholars and psychologists (Joe Carroll, Jon Gottschall, John Johnson, and Dan Kruger), and we are conducting a web-based survey about Hardy's novel The Mayor of Casterbridge. We are aiming at obtaining a census of expert opinion about the depiction of characters in this particular novel.

This is the location of the survey: http://survey.ehap.isr.umich.edu/mayor-intro.html.

All participation is strictly anonymous. We shall have no record of the name or address of any scholar filling out a questionnaire.

We are asking respondents to fill out questionnaires on six characters in the novel: Henchard, Susan, Newson, Lucetta, Elizabeth-Jane, and Farfrae. The questionnaire for each character takes only a couple of minutes to fill out. Filling out questionnaires on all six characters should take less than a quarter of an hour.

The questionnaire is meant to address important questions in both literary study and in psychology-questions about motives and personality, about the agonistic status of the characters (protagonists and antagonists), and about the responses of readers to the characters. The questions about motives and personality employ categories that psychologists have used to describe motives and personality traits in everyday life.

In one phase of this project, we extracted all the explicit personality attributions from this novel and rated them in accordance with the Five Factor personality system. We shall compare the results of this lexical analysis with the results from the personality portion of our questionnaire.

We shall also compare the results of this survey of The Mayor of Casterbridge with the results from another survey in which we received questionnaire responses from 1,700 participants filling out questionnaires on nearly six hundred characters from British novels of the nineteenth century. The survey of six hundred characters enables us to identify standard features in the novels of the period, and the results from the questionnaire on The Mayor of Casterbridge will enable us to compare these standard features with those in The Mayor of Casterbridge.

Our closing date for accepting questionnaires is September 21, 2005. We shall publish our findings, and we shall be happy to share the findings, on request, with anyone who is interested. Once we have collected and analyzed the data from the census, we shall post a notice on the Hardy Society Listserve, announcing that we are ready to share the results.

Thanks in advance for your help with this project!

Joseph Carroll

English Department

University of Missouri-St. Louis

St. Louis, MO 63121

jcarroll@umsl.edu

www.umsl.edu/~engjcarr/index.htm

OFFICE PHONE:

(314) 516-5543

OFFICE FAX:

(314) 516-5781

HOME ADDRESS:

9038 Old Bonhomme Rd.

St. Louis, MO 63132

HOME PHONE:

(314) 432-5583

Joseph Carroll

English Department

University of Missouri-St. Louis

St. Louis, MO 63121

jcarroll@umsl.edu

www.umsl.edu/~engjcarr/index.htm

OFFICE PHONE:

(314) 516-5543

OFFICE FAX:

(314) 516-5781

HOME ADDRESS:

9038 Old Bonhomme Rd.

St. Louis, MO 63132

HOME PHONE:

(314) 432-5583

==========

From: ulin@exchange.upb.pitt.edu

Subject: Re: Mayor of Casterbridge questionnaire

Date: September 12, 2005 4:50:06 AM PDT

Joe,

After the farcical, ad hominem attacks levelled against me and others in your book on literature and evolution, I've always found it a bit hard to take your "scholarship" seriously. So I hope you'll excuse me if I excuse myself from this survey.

Don

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From: ulin@exchange.upb.pitt.edu

Subject: Re: Mayor of Casterbridge questionnaire

Date: September 12, 2005 5:10:55 AM PDT

Sorry about airing my (or Joe's) dirty laundry on Hardy-L. I thought my message was going directly to him since a few weeks ago I received the same request directly from him. I'll stand by the sentiments; I just wouldn't have expressed them quite so directly or publicly!

Don

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From: Rosemarie.morgan@yale.edu

Subject: Re: Mayor of Casterbridge questionnaire

Date: September 12, 2005 5:42:07 AM PDT

Multiple Choice Experts

Many of us have already received this email privately.

Many of us find it anomalous that a group of "literary scholars" should resort to issuing multiple choice questions farmed out indiscriminately to "experts" all-and-sundry -- from students still learning the English language to self-professed anti-intellectuals (on this Forum).

Now, if students asked us to fill in a questionnaire to help provide "expert" answers to

"important questions in both literary study and in psychology questions about motives and personality, about the agonistic status of the characters" might we not scratch our heads at the reductiveness of the "expert" method and the sheer sloth of the student in question & advise him/her to knuckle down to some serious research -- say, by --er, reading all those numerous, well-researched,"expert" works on The Mayor of Casterbridge?

Dare I recommend that Joseph Carroll and his bunch of Instant-Gratification buddies start off with the Gerber-Davis Bibliography (on TTHA's Member's Research Resources Page) where they will encounter a veritable goldmine of MC titles-- offering reader-responses for over a hundred year period! Then they could progress to the Checklist (also on MRR) for current publications-- dozens and dozens of them. Or would that seem just a tad too much like scholarly discipline -- reeking of Deferred Gratification?

Perhaps you feel differently about this?

No apologies for the parti pris --

Rosemarie

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From: jcarroll@umsl.edu

Subject: Mayor of Casterbridge questionnaire

Date: September 12, 2005 5:54:22 AM PDT

In Evolution and Literary Theory, I criticized several postmodernist readings of Darwin, and among them Donald Ulin's essay "A Clerisy of Worms in Darwin's Inverted World." Professor Ulin characterizes these critique as "farcical, ad hominem attacks." I would not myself characterize them in that way. In order to enable other readers to judge for themselves, I shall copy below the paragraph in which I specifically criticized Professor Ulin's essay:

Reflecting on Darwin's last book, The Formation of Vegetable Mould Through the Action of Worms, Donald Ulin argues that "in breaking down traditional distinctions between mental activity and instinct, between humans and animals, and even between animals and plants in favor of a tangled, shifting web of interconnections, Darwin is invoking the kind of 'carnivalesque' that Mikhail Bakhtin finds subversive in the work of Rabelais. . . . For Darwin, clear categories, such as 'species,' are non-existent or, at best, uninteresting heuristic devices. The really productive spaces for Darwin are the indeterminate ones." As I shall explain in "Literature as a Subject of Study," Darwin opposes the Platonic or essentialist idea of species, but he does not himself suppose that unless categories subsist as Platonic essences they do not exist at all. Moreover, he has far too strong a sense of fact to be indifferent to the distinction between categories that do not exist and categories that are merely "uninteresting." And finally, it is, I think, patently absurd to suggest that the author of The Origin of Species regarded the category of species as an "uninteresting" heuristic device. The interest Darwin took in the category of species is manifested perhaps even more tellingly in the minute and arduous practical research, extending over several years, that he devoted to analyzing and classifying every one of the multitudinous species of barnacles.

Evolution and Literary Theory, pp. 68-69.

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From: jcarroll@umsl.edu

Subject: Re: Mayor of Casterbridge questionnaire

Date: September 12, 2005 6:34:47 AM PDT

Professor Morgan objects to issuing questionnaires "indiscriminately to 'experts' all-and sundry -- from students still learning the English language to self-professed anti-intellectuals (on this Forum)."

Those who visit the questionnaire will find there a series of questions designed to discriminate in the level of expertise of the respondents--questions about the level of education attained, how recently the book was read, and the purposes for which it was read (including the options "as part of a class I teach" and "for the purposes of professional scholarship"). There are also questions that ask the respondent whether he or she has ever published specifically on this novel, on any other novels by Hardy, or on any other aspect of Hardy or his work.

In analyzing the data from the responses to the questionnaires, we shall compare the responses from scholars at the various levels of expertise indicated by the answers to these questions. It will be a matter of some interest to see whether there are significant differences in response at different levels of expertise, or not.

Professor Morgan objects also to the use of questionnaires as a means of conducting a census of expert opinion, and she recommends instead that one simply read what other scholars have written. That latter method is an indispensable part of the whole scholarly process, but it cannot by its very nature provide reliably quantified responses to the categories of analysis. Reading discursive commentaries, and writing discursive commentaries about the discursive commentaries one had read, is a traditional method of analyzing reader response in the humanities. That method has its merits, but it also has its limitations.

The members of the research team conducting this present study believe that by combining discursive knowledge with methods using quantitative analysis, we can significantly advance our understanding of literary subjects.

==========

From: Rosemarie.morgan@yale.edu

Subject: Re: Mayor of Casterbridge questionnaire

Date: September 12, 2005 7:32:16 AM PDT

Thanks you, Joseph Carroll (or is it Anon?) for your thoughtful response.

My colleagues and I did look at the Questionnaire. I hope the outcome is fruitful

With every good wish,

Rosemarie Morgan

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From: ulin@exchange.upb.pitt.edu

Subject: RE: Mayor of Casterbridge questionnaire

Date: September 12, 2005 7:36:16 AM PDT

We may have a legitimate disagreement in this particular passage that you have quoted, but when I said "ad hominem," I was referring to your published speculations about my choices of medical assistance, how I (and others "like" me) might choose to raise my children, and what conclusions might therefore be derived about my own scholarship. I don't have your book in front of me since I returned it to the library long ago, or I would offer those quotations. I will admit that as a 2nd-year graduate student when I wrote the essay you refer to, I was a little more brash in my claims than I might have been today, and there was even something pleasing (if a little absurd) in being included by you among "critics like Ulin, Foucault, Bourdieu, Levine, etc." (I paraphrase). It was your use of speculation about my personal habits that I thought discredited your argument and that today leads me, along with Professor Morgan apparently, to be suspicious about the scholarship behind this survey. But I look forward to what I hope will be a more nuanced look at Darwin and the Platonic or essentialist view of species in your next book.

Since I was asked for a copy of the article Professor Carroll refers to, yes, I can e-mail anyone who is interested a .pdf copy (at about 1MB) or you can find it in Victorian Studies 35:3 (1992) 294-308.

Don

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From: jcarroll@umsl.edu

Subject: Re: Mayor of Casterbridge questionnaire

Date: September 12, 2005 9:10:29 AM PDT

Professor Ulin refers to a paragraph in which I speak of hypothetical choices about medical assistance. The paragraph to which he refers comes at the end of a sequence of critiques of postmodern commentaries on the indeterminacy of scientific knowledge. I'll copy the paragraph below:

Despite the supposedly political orientation of so much current literary theory, the elementary philosophical principles of this theory are not meant to be taken as a basis of action. They are meant only to subvert theories that make an appeal to falsification through experience. It is now the received wisdom that Western science and technology are merely hegemonic cultural constructions that should not be epistemologically "privileged" over any other form of discourse. If those who propound these views were to take their propositions seriously enough to live by them, and not merely to write books propounding them, the propositions themselves would very soon disappear along with the observers. [This latter phrase is an allusion to a previously quoted passage from Leslie Stephen's History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century: "A belief which brought a man into too direct collision with facts would soon disappear along with the observer."] Medical science provides an obvious instance. It is, I think, a safe assumption that the multitudes of people like Ulin, Beer, Pitts, Barrish, Smith, Serres, Levine, Foucault, Bono, Hassan, and Jameson--people who make such airy claims about science, textuality, and indeterminacy--still have their children vaccinated (those of them who have children), use antibiotics, visit the dentist regularly, and willingly undergo surgical procedures designed to save their lives. When they are sick, they do not go to a semiotician for a linguistic consultation; they do not submit their diseased bodies to literary colleagues for rhetorical analyses; and if when they fall ill they happen to be travelling in a pre-industrialized country, they do not visit the local witch doctor or herbalist as a means of validating local cultural practices. Instead, as quickly as ever they possibly can, they get expert medical attention from practitioners trained in Western medical science. And then later perhaps, while recuperating in a modern hospital bed, and while still physically attached to various sophisticated pieces of medical machinery, they continue to write essays, possibly using lap-top computers, in which they declare that even the most advanced machinery "is doomed to a kind of comical incoherence" and in which they insist that "we should at least dispel all the ideological illusions of technological progress" (Jameson, Postmodernism, p. 219). If, while writing such sentences, the writer were to perceive that one of the machines to which he is attached had actually become sufficiently "incoherent" to cease functioning, he would probably find nothing at all comical about it. He would use another machine to summon a nurse. And if, in conversation with the nurse, he discovered that better and more reliable machines were now available but were not in use at his particular hospital, he would be very likely to complain bitterly about the hospital's failure to take advantage of the technological progress he has just been describing as an illusion.

Evolution and Literary Theory, p. 81.

==========

From: jcarroll@umsl.edu

Subject: Re: Mayor of Casterbridge questionnaire

Date: September 12, 2005 9:27:49 AM PDT

"Given the elliptical nature of the citations made from Don's work together with the lack of source documentation (not the best of examples to set to students) -- it is difficult 'for readers to judge for themselves.'"

The original published comment on Professor Ulin's essay contains a footnote that gives the source documentation. I'll copy this footnote below:

Donald Ulin, "A Clerisy of Worms in Darwin's Inverted World," 303, 306. For an account of Darwin's travails with his "everlasting barnacles"--and a lucid exposition of the importance this work had for his scientific development--see John Bowlby, Charles Darwin: A New Life, 306-318.

I'm not sure what the word "elliptical" is meant to signify in this context. The quotations from Professor Ulin's essay are full and direct. They continue for several lines, contain substantial whole propositions in a connected sequence, and encapsulate the central theses of his essay.

The copied paragraph commenting on Professor Ulin's essay was intended to enable readers to judge whether the criticism of that essay was "farcical" and "ad homimen." In my judgment, the copied paragraph is sufficient to that purpose.

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From: kgwilson@uottawa.ca

Subject: Re: Mayor of Casterbridge questionnaire

Date: September 12, 2005 10:01:36 AM PDT

I have received an invitation to fill out this questionnaire a number of times over the last few months. When I received the first, I assumed it had been sent to me because I'd edited this novel for Penguin, and I also assumed that the questionnaire -- eccentric though it seemed as an intellectual exercise -- had a serious scholarly purpose. Once I started advancing through it -- a process on which I eventually gave up in frustration -- it soon became apparent that the kind of questions being asked were questions that not only had little meaning for a literary scholar but reflected very strange assumptions about the ways in which literary texts embody character.

I was invited to select a character from The Mayor of Casterbridge, and I chose Michael Henchard (as I suspect a majority of people attempting this questionnaire would). Once a couple of sighting questions had been asked to establish how well I knew basic facts about the chosen character, the questionnaire advanced to increasingly approximately defined character traits and reader responses to which people were invited to provide fairly precise (5-point-scale) answers. They were questions that admitted no room for a character changing over the course of a novel -- questions such as does he achieve his goals, how important is finding or keeping a spouse to him, how important is finding a short-term romantic partner. In relation to Henchard, answering these is impossible: so unimportant is keeping a wife to him that he's the only major fictional character in the history of English literature who actually sells one, but so important is finding her and atoning for this that many years later he remarries her. So what's the most appropriate answer to the question? The questionnaire assumes that characters and their motivations stay much the same for the duration of the novels in which they appear (there is no room on the form for temporal distinctions) and that these can be plotted on a five-point spectrum from very important to unimportant.

Even more baffling are the questions that try to establish the emotional responses of the reader. "Do you want Henchard to achieve his goals?" asks one. Even assuming that a character can be said to have consistent ambitions reducible to goals, do readers/audiences -- except perhaps for children -- spend much time agonising over whether those goals are going to be achieved? Another asks one to rate on a 1 to 5 scale from "not at all" to "very strong" one's emotional responses to the chosen character: does one feel anger, disgust, contempt, fear of, fear for, sadness, admiration, liking, amusement, indifference? Again, no room is provided for variation of response at different points in the novel, which presumably means that the novel's characters are conceived of as being entirely static. But even if such variables could be factored in to a multiple-choice format, what does it mean to ask such questions about a single character, the complexity of one's response to whom is a function of the wider complexity of the text of which he forms part? Do I dislike Richard III and Lady Macbeth? Well, I probably wouldn't want to employ them as baby-sitters but what does it mean to say I "dislike" them? They are characters in a play, and I haven't booed and hissed such creations since being prodded into doing so at childhood pantomimes. Authors explore complicated questions about human motivation, vulnerabilities, the messy business of being human, and the more interesting the author, the less given he or she is to inviting readers to make facile judgements on characters. But so unsubtle is this survey that it becomes the adult equivalent of inviting a child to cheer on the one hand or boo and hiss on the other -- although I suppose the "indifferent" question opens up that other childhood possibility of falling asleep in mid-performance.

In short, I gave up on the questionnaire out of a sense of helplessness in the face of the simplistic non-questions in which it was dealing. I suspect that there are going to be relatively few academics who did not do the same thing, or who if they persevered to the end didn't do so with an increasing sense of frustration at the reductive exercise they had committed themselves to completing. I find it difficult to believe that its strange nature will not dramatically circumscribe the usefulness of the survey's findings.

Keith Wilson

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From: schweikr@localnet.com

Subject: Re: Mayor of Casterbridge questionnaire

Date: September 12, 2005 10:57:21 AM PDT

Like Keith Wilson, I also received the invitation to respond to the questionnaire. Unlike him, I didn't

bother to respond. But I'm glad Keith did, if only to confirm what I assumed to be true about it.

Anyone with experience in reading serious literature who assumes that answering questions on

a five-point scale about a literary character as complex as that of Michael Henchard--and who

assumes that the character does not change over the course of the novel is--well--a bit like one

of Dickens' character's views of the law.

Those who wish to see one considered reflection on the changing character of Michael Henchard--and

there are others more recent--can consult my

"Character and Fate in Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge," Nineteenth-Century Fiction, 21

(December, 1966), 249-262.

But that issue is only one of several important ones that Keith calls attention to. I seems clear to me that

the Carroll et al. questionnaire is an exercise in futility.

Bob Schweik

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From: nhardyboy@aol.com

Subject: Re: Mayor of Casterbridge questionnaire

Date: September 12, 2005 11:17:09 AM PDT

I suppose I've "arrived" as a Hardy scholar, since I received the questionnaire; ah that I had the intestinal fortitude of Bob Schweik, because I did the whole thing, even while wondering what is the point. There's something to this questionnaire that smacks of those annoying lists you find on fan sites: "What's your favorite character and why?", etc. What is the benefit in knowing that 75% of all literary scholars view Henchard as the protagonist, or that 60% may feel unsympathetic toward Elizabeth-Jane?

Befuddled,

Paul Niemeyer

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From: jcarroll@umsl.edu

Subject: Re: Mayor of Casterbridge questionnaire

Date: September 12, 2005 12:24:50 PM PDT

Keith Wilson raises some questions that are worth considering for their own right and that also open up larger questions of methodology and disciplinary orientation.

One question concerns the issue as to whether it's possible to attribute distinctly calibrated motives to a character who changes over time. With respect to Henchard, Professor Wilson instances calibrating the motive of "finding or keeping a spouse," and he notes that Henchard sells a spouse and then later re-marries her.

All the questions about motives are designed to compel a response in which the respondent assesses the relative weight of a given motive within the total economy of a character's motives over the course of a whole lifetime, or at least for that portion of a life that is revealed in the story. For some characters, getting married will have been one of the most compelling of all motives. For others, that motive will weigh relatively lighter in the scale of life-purposes than other purposes, for instance, "gaining or keeping wealth," "making friends and forming alliances," or "obtaining education or culture."

In contrast to Professor Wilson, I find it possible to abstract from contingencies of time and circumstance and to identify what seem to be the deepest, most compelling motives in a character's total set of motives over the course of his life, to compare those with what appear to be lighter motives, and to weigh both against motives that, for this given character, appear to be relatively trivial or insignificant.

For the purposes of this research project, this is really a practical, empirical question. Is it practicable for a significant number of respondents to perform this act of analytic abstraction with respect to a character's motives? The answer is evidently "yes, it is practicable." Questions very similar to those in the questionnaire for Mayor of Casterbridge also appear in a survey that we recently conducted. This larger survey contains about 2,000 characters from about 200 novels. We received about 1,700 responses to that questionnaire. (Most of the respondents were in fact academics.)

In passing, Professor Wilson raises a question as to whether "a character can be said to have consistent ambitions reducible to goals." The answer, again, is yes. Let me give a few examples.

"Without thinking highly either of men or of matrimony, marriage had always been her object." (Said of Charlotte Lucas, by the narrator, in Pride and Prejudice)

"He was ambitious of a wider effect: he was fired with the possibility that he might work out the proof of an anatomical conception and make a link in the chain of discovery." (Said of Lydgate, by the narrator, in Middlemarch)

"[I] would strive as I grew up to be industrious, contented, and kind-hearted, and to do some good to some one, and win some love to myself if I could." (Esther Summerson, in Bleak House, speaking of herself.)

Examples are of course, unlimited.

The question that Professor Wilson raises about emotional response is in one respect parallel to the question he raises about being able to attribute relatively weighted motives to characters. He objects that "no room is provided for variation of response at different points in the novel," and he infers, mistakenly, that this "presumably means that the novel's characters are conceived of as being entirely static." What it means, actually, is that the reader is being asked to abstract a set of emotional responses, consolidate or combine responses of similar emotions at different points in the story, and give a relative weight to that combined emotional response. One emotion is "anger," another "disgust," another "admiration," and so on. For a large number of respondents, it evidently is in fact possible to perform this act of abstraction and consolidation.

In addition to this question about the possibility of consolidating and weighting specific emotional responses relative to other specific emotional responses, Professor Wilson raises a question about whether it is right or reasonable to ask any question at all about emotional response, at any point in the story. "What does it mean to ask such questions about a single character, the complexity of one's response to whom is a function of the wider complexity of the text of which he forms part?" This formulation seems a little confused. It seems to combine and confound two distinct ideas: (1) that emotional responses are complex, and (2) that responding emotionally to a character is not an appropriate way to engage a literary text. I'll comment briefly on each of these propositions.

It is quite true that emotional responses to literary characters can be complex. One way to register complexity is to assess relative weights and combinations in a range of "basic" emotions. That is what we are aiming at in this portion of our study. The questions on emotion are, moreover, designed to be cross-referenced and correlated with a set of questions designed to capture different aspects of "agonistic" status-questions about the centrality of the character in relation to the story as a whole, and questions about the reader's responses to the character's efforts to achieve his or her goals.

Is it true that a complex and sophisticated literary response involves a disinterested and detached state of analytic reflection that is inconsistent with feeling any definite emotions about characters, even if those emotions can be relatively weighted, combined, and played off against one another? My own answer is "no." Authors do indeed probe "complicated questions about human motivation, vulnerabilities, the messy business of being human." But ambiguity and complexity are not equivalent to emotional neutrality. Characters are depictions of human beings. Authors are human beings. And readers are human beings. Remove the emotion in the response to other humans, and literature would lose much of its point and value.

There is a larger issue, implied but not very directly addressed, in Professor Wilson's critique of this project. It appears in the word "reductive" in the phrase "sense of frustration at the reductive exercise." In The Critique of Pure Reason, Kant identifies a governing polarity of all mental life, moving at one end toward multifariousness of detail and aspect, and at the other end toward analytic reduction and centralization of concepts. That polarity has multiple manifestations in the diverse departments of intellectual life. The humanities, in their most traditional, discursive form, have tended toward one pole, that of qualitative nuance and particularity of detail. The sciences by their nature tend toward the other pole, the reduction of complex phenomena to larger, simpler principles. One central purpose in this present study is to bring some of the complexity of literary experience within the range of analytic reduction that can be usefully integrated with empirical psychological knowledge.

==========

From: kgwilson@uottawa.ca

Subject: Re: Mayor of Casterbridge questionnaire

Date: September 12, 2005 3:04:10 PM PDT

I suspect we may be embarking on one of those web-induced differences of opinion that are finally profitless: certainly I doubt that either Professor Carroll or I are about to change each other's views. But I'll respond briefly to some of the points raised in his latest e-mail.

You write:

"All the questions about motives are designed to compel a response in which the respondent assesses the relative weight of a given motive within the total economy of a character's motives over the course of a whole lifetime, or at least for that portion of a life that is revealed in the story. For some characters, getting married will have been one of the most compelling of all motives. For others, that motive will weigh relatively lighter in the scale of life-purposes than other purposes, for instance, "gaining or keeping wealth," "making friends and forming alliances," or "obtaining education or culture. In contrast to Professor Wilson, I find it possible to abstract from contingencies of time and circumstance and to identify what seem to be the deepest, most compelling motives in a character's total set of motives over the course of his life, to compare those with what appear to be lighter motives, and to weigh both against motives that, for this given character, appear to be relatively trivial or insignificant."

I'd have to say that I'm not convinced by the idea of an "economy of motives" that can be in any useful way measured quantitatively. I think the kinds of "purpose" that you list are inevitably intertwined in complex ways that make it impossible to tease them out as single motives. What if a character's apparently compelling motive to get married is itself fuelled, as it often is in fictional circumstance, by a desire or need to gain wealth? The questions asked don't allow sufficiently for circumstantial and motivational complexity, and since all your respondents can do is click a category on a five-point scale they are given no room to address that complexity. It also seems to me that you need to trust your respondents enough to explain in more detail what you are attempting. Without that explanation, your questions appear simply naive.

You further write:

"For the purposes of this research project, this is really a practical, empirical question. Is it practicable for a significant number of respondents to perform this act of analytic abstraction with respect to a character's motives? The answer is evidently "yes, it is practicable." Questions very similar to those in the questionnaire for Mayor of Casterbridge also appear in a survey that we recently conducted. This larger survey contains about 2,000 characters from about 200 novels. We received about 1,700 responses to that questionnaire. (Most of the respondents were in fact academics.)"

The 1700 responses indicate nothing about whether "it is practicable for a significant number of respondents to perform this act of analytic abstraction" (especially since you have not indicated to them that this is what you imagine them to be doing). Such an indication would require an informed assessment of the worth of the act they have performed -- and, in the case of "an act of analytic abstraction," whether they have indeed performed it. All the 1700 responses indicate is that you found 1700 people willing to fill out the form. Unfortunately, as the discussion of the questionnaire is beginning to suggest, many (most?) of those whose opinions on the novel are most worth having wouldn't have been prepared to do so.

You further write:

"In passing, Professor Wilson raises a question as to whether 'a character can be said to have consistent ambitions reducible to goals.' The answer, again, is yes. Let me give a few examples.

'Without thinking highly either of men or of matrimony, marriage had always been her object.' (Said of Charlotte Lucas, by the narrator, in Pride and Prejudice)

'He was ambitious of a wider effect: he was fired with the possibility that he might work out the proof of an anatomical conception and make a link in the chain of discovery.' (Said of Lydgate, by the narrator, in Middlemarch)

'[I] would strive as I grew up to be industrious, contented, and kind-hearted, and to do some good to some one, and win some love to myself if I could.' (Esther Summerson, in Bleak House, speaking of herself.)

Examples are of course, unlimited."

My question was more subtly couched than your decontextualizing suggests. The question I raised about your use of the term "goals" related to the inevitability of characters -- and hence their "goals" -- changing over the course of a novel, and therefore the pointlessness of phrasing a question in such a way as to suggest that characters remain static. "Goal" itself is a somewhat unfortunate metaphor, since it is so single-dimensional and end-determined (once the ball is in the net, the immediate end has been achieved and has no further motivational significance, other than the pursuit of the next "goal"). The way round this problem would have been for your survey to try and factor in changes in character over time. I don't know how you would have done this, and the presupposition about character implicit in your questions suggested that you hadn't noticed its necessity. But it would have gone some way to circumventing the suggestion that characters have single/simple motivations that can be assessed on a five-point scale. Of course characters frequently declare their motivations in books, or have them declared on their behalf by narrators. Does that mean that we accept them at face value? Is the narrator's voice always right? Is a first-person narrator when speaking of his/her own motivations always to be trusted? These are the kinds of question that your apparent assumption (given what you revealed to your respondents) of motivational singularity/transparency/consistency blithely ignored, which is what made your questions unanswerable on the terms in which you phrased them (with all due respect to the 1700 people who you claim valiantly made the attempt).

You further write:

"The question that Professor Wilson raises about emotional response is in one respect parallel to the question he raises about being able to attribute relatively weighted motives to characters. He objects that "no room is provided for variation of response at different points in the novel," and he infers, mistakenly, that this "presumably means that the novel's characters are conceived of as being entirely static." What it means, actually, is that the reader is being asked to abstract a set of emotional responses, consolidate or combine responses of similar emotions at different points in the story, and give a relative weight to that combined emotional response. One emotion is "anger," another "disgust," another "admiration," and so on. For a large number of respondents, it evidently is in fact possible to perform this act of abstraction and consolidation.

Again, if this was your intention, your medium was inadequate to its task. The phrasing gives no indication of the need "to abstract a set of emotional responses, consolidate or combine responses of similar emotions at different points in the story, and give a relative weight to that combined emotional response." That's a very ambitious agenda, and if you wanted your respondents to aspire to fulfil it, you would have needed to trust them enough to indicate its existence. The process of abstraction and consolidation may be what you are assuming/hoping your respondent's single-point answers reflect, but all your respondent has been asked to do is to rate his/her emotional response (I feel anger, I feel disgust etc. etc.) on a scale. Why did you not inform your respondents that they were engaging in this "act of abstraction and consolidation," rather than responding, inevitably approximately, to simplistically-phrased questions? The outcome may not have been very different, but you would at least have been dealing more openly with your respondents.

You claim that "The sciences by their nature tend toward . . . the reduction of complex phenomena to larger, simpler principles," and suggest that your project has this scientific end in view. I would have thought the first thing the scientific approach has to be sure of is the validity of its data. As all pollsters know, sometimes to their discomfort, the validity of the data elicited is entirely dependent on the nature/validity of the questions asked. Questions phrased in such a way as to cause informed readers of Hardy to give up on the survey are hardly likely to produce outcomes of much value.

Keith Wilson

Professor of English/President, ACCUTE

University of Ottawa

70 Laurier Avenue East (Room 313)

Ottawa, Ontario

CANADA K1N 6N5

Tel: (613) 562-5800, Ext. 1160

Fax: (613) 562-5990

e-mail: kgwilson@uottawa.ca

==========

From: jcarroll@umsl.edu

Subject: Re: Mayor of Casterbridge questionnaire

Date: September 12, 2005 4:13:37 PM PDT

I agree with Professor Wilson that we are unlikely to change each other's minds, and this particular listserve is not especially suitable as a locus for an extended exchange over basic theoretical and methodological issues. So, I'll make this as concise as possible.

PROFESSOR WILSON:

MY RESPONSE:

Motives are intertwined in complex ways with one another, with mate-selection criteria, and with features of personality. Statistical analyses of correlations, including procedures that enable the researchers to extract higher order "factors" from motives and mate-selection criteria, do in fact make it possible to tease out the relative significance and relations among the different categories of analysis.

PROFESSOR WILSON:

MY RESPONSE;

Professor Wilson said he found it impossible to answer the questions. Many other people have found it possible. Questions that made no sense to them would not have induced that many professional people to participate in the study.

PROFESSOR WILSON:

Unfortunately, as the discussion of the questionnaire is beginning to suggest, many (most?) of those whose opinions on the novel are most worth having wouldn't have been prepared to do so.

MY RESPONSE:

All this means is that Professor Wilson believes that the opinions of those resistant to this methodology are the ones most worth having. That's begging the question, and in a rather transparently self-flattering way.

PROFESSOR WILSON:

"Goal" itself is a somewhat unfortunate metaphor, since it is so single-dimensional and end-determined (once the ball is in the net, the immediate end has been achieved and has no further motivational significance, other than the pursuit of the next "goal").

MY RESPONSE:

This is just a way of restating the initial declaration of Professor Wilson's scepticism about the concept of "goals" in relation to motives. As I've already explained, I think the objection without merit.

PROFESSOR WILSON:

Of course characters frequently declare their motivations in books, or have them declared on their behalf by narrators. Does that mean that we accept them at face value?

MY RESPONSE:

No, it means we make judgments about their reliability, just as we do in life.

PROFESSOR WILSON:

The phrasing gives no indication of the need "to abstract a set of emotional responses, consolidate or combine responses of similar emotions at different points in the story, and give a relative weight to that combined emotional response." That's a very ambitious agenda, and if you wanted your respondents to aspire to fulfil it, you would have needed to trust them enough to indicate its existence.

MY RESPONSE:

We've trusted our respondents enough to anticipate that they can make reasonable sense out of reasonable questions, and the data we have received so far confirms our confidence in that trust.

PROFESSOR WILSON:

Questions phrased in such a way as to cause informed readers of Hardy to give up on the survey are hardly likely to produce outcomes of much value.

MY RESPONSE:

We have never anticipated that all informed readers of Hardy will be receptive to the methodology we have employed. Our chief goal is to gain sufficient participation from informed readers so that we can achieve statistically significant results in our data. We are pleased with the response we have had so far, and we are truly grateful to those of you who have already helped us along the way to that goal.

==========

From: Rosemarie.morgan@yale.edu

Subject: Re: Mayor of Casterbridge questionnaire

Date: September 12, 2005 6:57:07 PM PDT

Fortunately for the future of higher education and our love of literature it is unlikely that the outcome of a reductive questionnaire of this kind will change anyone's mind about anything.

Rosemarie Morgan

==========

From: kgwilson@uottawa.ca

Subject: Re: Mayor of Casterbridge questionnaire

Date: September 12, 2005 7:45:37 PM PDT

To: HARDY-L@csusm.edu

Reply-To: HARDY-L@csusm.edu

Well, you've got me. I do indeed believe that those literary scholars who

think it a pointless exercise to attempt to indicate on a five-point scale

the degree to which a fictional character makes them angry or afraid are,

prima facie, more likely to have opinions worth hearing on a novel than

those who don't think it's a pointless exercise. But then apart from the

people who constructed this very strange questionnaire, I've not to my

knowledge encountered anyone in the second category. If there are any out

there, I'd be delighted to hear from them, and they can rest assured that

they can say what they want without my being tempted to return to this

discussion, my contribution to which has already been three e-mails too

many.

Very best wishes,

Keith Wilson

==========

From: jcarroll@umsl.edu

Subject: Re: Mayor of Casterbridge questionnaire

Date: September 12, 2005 7:58:05 PM PDT

"Fortunately for the future of higher education and our love of literature

it is unlikely that the outcome of a reductive questionnaire of this kind

will change anyone's mind about anything."

Rosemarie Morgan

*****

Actually, there are a number of people who recognize that

analytic reduction is a way of developing knowledge, not closing it off.

Virtually everyone in the sciences and the social sciences would recognize

that, and there are also a good many people in the humanities who see no

need to equate a love of literature with a fear of explanation. Such people

would presumably wish to see the actual outcome of research before declaring

that it could have no effect on their own thinking.

But this is the best of all possible worlds. Those who wish to

learn whatever can be learned from the exploration of this new methodology

are free to do that. And for those, like Professor Morgan, who stoutly

declare that they don't wish to know anything that it could possibly teach

them, there is no obligation to learn.

==========

From: Rosemarie.morgan@yale.edu

Subject: Re: Mayor of Casterbridge questionnaire

Date: September 13, 2005 7:34:21 AM PDT

Dear Professor Carroll --

"Influence" was my word. I did not state or even imply that I, or anyone else, favoured any fruitless pursuit such as joining the ranks of the witless -- those who "don't wish to know anything."

And for anyone knowing my work I doubt very much that my "love of literature" could be equated "with a fear of explanation."

Possibly it is precisely this kind of reduction and distortion of meaning which concerns those scholars who have declined to participate in the questionnaire?

But in the interests of Hardy scholarship and the sustained support of TTHA's Forum members I will now conclude my part in this somewhat circular discussion which appears to have returned to its original premise of the "fruitless pursuit."

Cheers,

Rosemarie

==========

From: schweikr@localnet.com

Subject: Response to Joseph Carroll

Date: September 13, 2005 1:57:14 PM PDT

John Carroll's assumption that the Forum is not a place for the kind of discussion his questionnaire has raised is, I think, mistaken. The exchange between him and Professor Wilson shows otherwise. In fact, TTHA's Forum is precisely the place where such discussions can be held. There is no time or space limit, and Professor Carroll has taken advantage of that feature to respond at length to Professor Wilson's comments.

I want here to continue that discussion and to focus on what are assumptions at the core of Carroll's enterprise. I originally did not look at Professor Carroll's questionnaire. I have, now, done so and, though I have not, of course,

submitted my response to it, I have examined the questionnaire closely and, too, have closely considered Professor Carroll's responses to Keith Wilson's comments.

Professor Carroll's responses are logically flawed in the following ways.

First, Professor Carroll argues:

It is always, of course, "possible to abstract from contingencies of time and circumstance." That is a characteristic of the human capacity to abstract. The question, however, is whether or not it is useful and revealing to make such abstractions in any given case. With respect to Hardy's The

Mayor of Casterbridge, Carroll attempts to identify what "seem to be" Henchard's "deepest, most compelling motives . . . over the course of his life" with a questionnaire which lists such things as "Survival," "Finding a short-term romantic partner," "Finding a keeping spouse," "Gaining or keeping wealth,"

"Gaining or keeping power," etc. Such choices--forced upon the responder--simply do not invite useful and revealing responses. They assume that the reader will find in Henchard some "deepest, most compelling motive" where, in fact, readers sensitive to Hardy's novel will find no such single "deepest, most compelling motive" but multiple and conflicting motives. It is, in short, no wonder that Professor Wilson was unable to complete the questionnaire. It is equally no wonder, of course, that many persons could check off boxes in answers to that question, for, in that respect Professor Carroll's questionnaire will certainly reveal the extraordinary capacity of humans to abstract and simplify in very crude ways But that we already know. A mathematically sophisticated

compilation of simplistic reductions will be the inevitable result of Professor Carroll's study.

Second, Professor Carroll argues:

In passing, Professor Wilson raises a question as to whether "a character can be said to have consistent ambitions reducible to goals" The answer, again, is yes. Let me give a few examples."

Professor Carroll then quotes from passages in Pride and Prejudice, Middlemarch, and Bleak House--but, strikingly, does not quote from The Mayor of Casterbridge which, of course is the novel at issue. And for a very good reason: Henchard cannot be reduced to "a character . . . [with] consistent ambitions reducible to goals"--or can be done so only at the expense of simplifying the very complex character Hardy created. And that, of course, is precisely the simplifying and reductive consequence of Professor Carroll's questionnaire.

Third, Professor Carroll makes the following response to Professor Wilson's objection that "no room is provided for variation of response at different points in the novel":

[Wilson] infers mistakenly, that this 'presumably means that the novel's characters are conceived of as being entirely static.' What it means, actually, is that the reader is being asked to abstract a set of emotional responses, consolidate or combine responses of similar emotions at different points of the story, and give a relative weight to that combined emotional response. One emotion is 'anger,' another 'disgust,' another 'admiration,' and so on. For a large number of respondents, it evidently is in fact possible to perform this act of abstraction and consolidation.

Again, Professor Carroll simply misses the point. Of course it is "possible" for "a large number of respondents" to "perform this act of abstraction." However, to repeat what I have already said: "That will certainly reveal the extraordinary capacity of humans to 'abstract' and simplify. But that we already know." What sophisticated insight a statistical analysis of such simplified crude abstractions might provide about the art of The Mayor of Casterbridge is another matter altogether.

Finally, Professor Carroll concludes that the humanities have tended toward

nuance and particularity of detail. The sciences by their nature tend toward tend toward the other pole, the reduction of complex phenomena to larger, simpler principles. One central purpose of the present study is to bring some of the complexity of literary experience within the range of analytic reduction that can be usefully integrated with empirical psychological knowledge.

But that, I think, is not the issue. Whether "the complexity of literary experience" can be brought "within the range of analytic reduction that can be usefully integrated with empirical psychological knowledge" is an open question. The present issue, rather, is whether Professor Carroll's attempt to do so by a simplistic questionnaire is likely to reveal anything useful about the art of The Mayor of Casterbridge. That it will reveal much about the capacity of many readers to respond in simplistic and reductive ways about the novel is without doubt. But---as I say---that we already know. And the result--no doubt a complex statistical account of those reductive simplifications--will do no more than quantify such simplifications.

Bob Schweik

Robert Schweik

University Distinguished Teaching Professor

Department of English

State University of New York

Fredonia, NY 14063

USA

Telephone: (716) 673-1905

FAX: (716) 673-3446

schweik@fredonia.edu

schweikr@localnet.com

==========

From: jcarroll@umsl.edu

Subject: Re: Response to Joseph Carroll

Date: September 13, 2005 4:03:05 PM PDT

The bulk of Professor Schweik's criticisms are just variations on the same basic argument made by Keith Wilson-that in The Mayor of Casterbridge motives, emotions, and personality are too complex and variable to be meaningfully reduced to the categories under analysis in the questionnaire. Professor Schweik, like Professor Wilson, is a bit confused on this issue. He contends that the characters have "multiple and conflicting motives," and he seems to think that if characters have multiple and conflicting motives, motives cannot be relatively weighted for them. That idea is false.

I quoted passages from Austen, Eliot, and Dickens, illustrating the way in which authors attribute distinct motives to characters. I didn't quote from The Mayor of Casterbridge because I didn't want to suggest possible substantive responses to the questionnaire while respondents might still be working on it. But of course characters in The Mayor of Casterbridge have motives, just as all characters do. In response to the challenge, I'll cite a few instances in which characters have motives attributed to them.

Here is a passage on Elizabeth-Jane:

The desire--sober and repressed--of Elizabeth-Jane's heart was indeed to see, to hear, and to understand. How could she become a woman of wider knowledge, higher repute--"better," as she termed it--this was her constant inquiry of her mother.

And here are a couple of passages on Henchard--passages from which most competent readers will be able to abstract and give a relative weighting to motives such as the desire for marriage, the desire to care for kin, and the desire to achieve wealth and standing in the world.

The conversation took a high turn, as it often does on such occasions. The ruin of good men by bad wives, and, more particularly, the frustration of many a promising youth's high aims and hopes and the extinction of his energies by an early imprudent marriage, was the theme.

"I did for myself that way thoroughly," said the trusser with a contemplative bitterness that was well-night resentful. "I married at eighteen, like the fool that I was; and this is the consequence o't.". . . .

"I haven't more than fifteen shillings in the world, and yet I am a good experienced hand in my line. I'd challenge England to beat me in the fodder business; and if I were a free man again I'd be worth a thousand pound before I'd done o't. But a fellow never knows these little things till all chance of acting upon 'em is past."

As Professor Wilson notes, Susan later returns and Henchard remarries her. Here is a passage on his motives during that phase:

He pressed on the preparations for his union, or rather reunion, with this pale creature in a dogged, unflinching spirit which did credit to his conscientiousness. Nobody would have conceived from his outward demeanour that there was no amatory fire or pulse of romance acting as stimulant to the bustle going on in his gaunt, great house; nothing but three large resolves--one, to make amends to his neglected Susan, another, to provide a comfortable home for Elizabeth-Jane under his paternal eye; and a third, to castigate himself with the thorns which these restitutory acts brought in their train; among them the lowering of his dignity in public opinion by marrying so comparatively humble a woman.

Jenchard is a particularly turbulent, unstable character, and in the course of his life, his motives undergo some changes. Late in the novel, Hardy summarizes some of these changes:

He experienced not only the bitterness of a man who finds, in looking back upon an ambitious course, that what he has sacrificed in sentiment was worth as much as what he has gained in substance; but the superadded bitterness of seeing his very recantation nullified. He had been sorry for all this long ago; but his attempts to replace ambition by love had been as fully foiled as his ambition itself.

Henchard is complex, and his motives vary over time. That is true of many characters in serious literature. Does anyone really believe that Hardy's characters are more complex, or less determinate in motivation, than the characters of George Eliot? It is nonetheless possible to give a relative weighting to the total force any given motive has over the course of a lifetime. If Henchard had never tried to replace ambition by love, his profile would be different, but it would still be a profile in which the respondent weighed the relative force of love and ambition in the total economy of Henchard's motives.

******

The questionnaire is designed to enable readers to give relative weightings to multiple and conflicting motives. It is designed also so that the multiple and conflicting motives can be correlated with multiple criteria of mate selection and multiple features of personality. All of those categories will be correlated with the emotional responses of readers and with the various aspects of agonistic status.

As I mentioned in the notice inviting participation in this project, there are two other components in this study: a "lexical" analysis of personality and a comparison with the results of the big website survey of about 2,000 novels

The question as to whether the combined correlations among our various categories of analysis will ultimately prove "useful and illuminating" is a question that Professor Schweik, like Professors Wilson and Morgan, is determined to prejudge. In my own view, their prejudgments have no value as critical observations. They are merely articulations of a certain kind of close-mindedness.

==========

From: shjoan1002@qwest.net

Subject: Re: Response to Joseph Carroll

Date: September 13, 2005 4:19:04 PM PDT

Heartfelt thanks to Robert Schweik, for his considered, scholarly, and civilized response to the aims and assumptions of Joseph Carroll and his questionnaire. Professor Carroll seems to favor a reductionist, simplistic approach to his work that has become altogether too convenient in our society. Moreover, to assign "analytic reduction" as the only approach of science is to insult levels of cognition that are probably above him. In particular, the following caught my attention:

Whether "the complexity of literary experience" can be

brought "within the range of analytic reduction that can be usefully integrated with empirical psychological knowledge" is an open question

In defense of psychology, I assert that "the complexity of literary experience" offers a host of treasures to be studied through some of psychology's more complex lenses, to the end of illuminating and deepening our understanding of ourselves. I cannot think of a better context for this pursuit than the art of literary analysis (or literary interpretation, to remove any hint of reductionism).

Joan Sheski

==========

From: kgwilson@uottawa.ca

Subject: Re: Response to Joseph Carroll

Date: September 13, 2005 5:57:14 PM PDT

To: HARDY-L@csusm.edu

Reply-To: HARDY-L@csusm.edu

Well you've succeeded in drawing me back into this strange discussion by

once again entirely distorting what Bob Schweik, and everyone else who has

entered the debate, has actually said. You write:

But of course characters in The Mayor of Casterbridge have motives, just as all characters do.

No-one has at any stage disputed this, so there is no point in keep coming

back to ponderously quoted piece-meal examples of characters displaying

motives, as if they provided some kind of argumentative life-belt to grab

hold of. Of course characters are provided with motives, both explicitly

and implicitly, by the authors who create them. Indeed, one couldn't have

novels without character motivation. The question is whether those

motives can be reduced to the single dominant terms to which your

questionnaire's simplistic categories require your respondents to reduce

them (bearing in mind that you've told us -- but unfortunately not your

respondents -- that this process requires respondents to reduce every act

performed and motive suggested by their chosen characters to some

essential core that allows definition of the dominant one). As a cipher

of how spurious this imagined process of reduction is, I cite one of your

own examples of Henchard's supposedly displaying a motive, and thereby

presumably providing one small item of evidence that your respondents can

go to work on: --

"I did for myself that way thoroughly," said the trusser with a

contemplative bitterness that was well-night resentful. "I married at

eighteen, like the fool that I was; and this is the consequence o't.". .

You claim for this passage that from it "most competent readers will be

able to abstract and give a relative weighting to motives such as the

desire for marriage, the desire to care for kin, and the desire to achieve

wealth and standing in the world." You give no indication of how this

passage illuminates any of these desires: you simply make the claim that a

"competent reader" can assess their relative importance from two

sentences.

But worse still, in your own desire to present this scene as supplying

evidence of a clear-cut motive, you decontextualize, and hence

misrepresent, it (as you have done with the argument of everyone who

disagrees with you), neglecting to mention the crucial, situation

specific, defining fact that Henchard expresses this view after consuming

four basins of rum-laced furmity. He is so drunk he barely knows what he

is doing or saying, and spends the next eighteen years regretting the

consequent wife-sale, and the drink-fuelled "motives" that have led to it.

How does such a moment show a clear, governing, uncomplicated,

scientifically measurable motive that your "competent readers" can reduce

and use in a statistically significant calculation of the relative

dominance of each component of a nexus of contradictory motives?

It's beginning to sound a little as if your conceptual model is provided

by Bentham, with his strange faith in the possibility/efficacy of a

hedonic calculus. He had the excuse of operating before the psychological

sciences had advanced much beyond their infancy. No modern scholar does.

Keith Wilson

Professor of English/President, ACCUTE

University of Ottawa

70 Laurier Avenue East

Ottawa

Ontario, K1N 6N5

CANADA

Tel: (613) 562-5800 Ext. 1160

Fax: (613) 562-5990

e-mail: kgwilson@uottawa.ca

==========

From: schweikr@localnet.com

Subject: Re: Response to Joseph Carroll

Date: September 13, 2005 7:23:58 PM PDT

Professor Carroll has responded to my objections to his survey with the following comment:

I leave it to members of the Forum to decide whether or not professor Carroll's questions are simplistic and, consequently, in my view, cannot, in any sophisticated and meaningful way, be "weighted." Here are the kinds

of questions Professor Carroll asks:

Does Michael Henchard accomplish his or her main goals?

Yes, completely

Mostly

A little

Not at all

On the whole, do you want Michael Henchard to achieve his goals?

Yes

I do not care

I do not remember

In your opinion, is the success or failure of Michael Henchard's hopes or efforts a

main feature in the outcome of this novel?

Yes

I do not remember

I leave it to members of the Forum to decide. Do questions of that kind, with the

limitations they impose on responders, allow for really useful and revealing

responses to the complexities of Hardy's novel? Most members of the Forum have

read at least once The Mayor of Casterbridge. I'd like to hear what you think.

Bob

At 06:03 PM 9/13/2005 -0500, Joseph Carroll wrote:

Here is a passage on Elizabeth-Jane:

As Professor Wilson notes, Susan later returns and Henchard remarries her. Here is a passage on his motives during that phase:

Jenchard is a particularly turbulent, unstable character, and in the course of his life, his motives undergo some changes. Late in the novel, Hardy summarizes some of these changes:

******

Robert Schweik

University Distinguished Teaching Professor

Department of English

State University of New York

Fredonia, NY 14063

USA

Telephone: (716) 673-1905

FAX: (716) 673-3446

schweik@fredonia.edu

schweikr@localnet.com

==========

From: jcarroll@umsl.edu

Subject: motives simple and complex

Date: September 13, 2005 11:20:49 PM PDT

In his most recent effort to formulate an intelligible criticism of the

questions about motives, Professor Wilson says, "The question is whether

those motives can be reduced to the single dominant terms to which your

questionnaire's simplistic categories require your respondents to reduce

them."

The motives we ask about in the questionnaire are these: survival, finding a

short-term romantic partner, finding or keeping a spouse, gaining of keeping

wealth, gaining or keeping power, gaining or keeping prestige, obtaining

education or culture, making friends and alliances, nurturing offspring or

aiding other kin, aiding non-kin, building, creating or discovering

something, and performing routine tasks to earn a livelihood.

Professor Wilson objects to using examples from actual novels, but that's a

senseless objection. Charlotte Lucas wanted to get married. Lydgate wanted

to make a link in the chain of discovery. Esther Summerson wanted to do

some good for people and thus win some love for herself. Elizabeth-Jane

wanted education. Farfrae wanted to prosper and get married. Lucetta

wanted to marry a successful man. Newson wanted a wife and child. Abel

Whittle wanted to earn a livelihood and take care of his old mother, and

then later to take care of the man who had helped his old mother. Henchard

wanted to get rich. He had bitterly regretted getting married to start

with, since it got in the way of his desire to get rich, and when he

remarried, he did it strictly as an act of restitution, with no feeling at

all for the woman he was marrying. He did have some kinship feeling for the

girl he thought his own offspring, but when he discovered she was not

actually his, he became coldly hostile to her. Later, he wanted to sustain

a close bond with Elizabeth-Jane, even though she wasn't his kin. At one

point in his life, he was interested enough in a short-term romantic

relationship to have that sort of relationship with Lucetta. He didn't

really care that much about marrying Lucetta, until it became a matter of

competition with Farfrae. He had very much valued Farfrae as a friend, but

his competitive social ambition, his desire for status, came between him and

his friend.

Each one of these cases is a case in which a character has motives that can

be reduced to the terms in our questionnaire. Since each possible motive

can be given a numerical rating, it is quite clear that characters can have

more than one motive. And it is common knowledge that motives can change

over time. Readers just have to judge how strong any given motive might be

in the total economy of motives over a character's span of life. This

really isn't so difficult as Professor Wilson would like to make out.

It is perhaps somewhat harder to answer the questions as to whether Henchard

achieves his goals, and whether the reader wants him to achieve them. To

answer those questions, the reader has to step back from the whole life

picture, weigh the various goals, evaluate them, decide how successful

Henchard has been, and how the reader has felt about those successes and

failures. Henchard's own judgment on that, at the end of his life, is of

course very negative, but for one major phase of his life he did in fact

achieve what he set out to do. The respondent has to make his own

judgement, in a summary way, about the total picture.

The questions on achieving goals are interlocked with questions on the

reader's emotional response and also with questions on the centrality of the

character to the action of the story. This whole suite of questions is

designed to capture different aspects of a character's "agonistic" status.

In Henchard's case, agonistic status is more problematic than it is for some

characters, but the questions will capture something of that problematic

status and thus make it possible to compare this case with simpler cases.

Professor Wilson seems to be accusing me of dishonesty in not revealing to

my supposedly unsuspecting respondents that Henchard was drunk when he sold

his wife and child. But of course I'm assuming that people who fill out the

questionnaire have actually read the novel, know that Henchard was drunk,

and can make their own judgments as to whether the drunkenness distorted his

motives or suppressed his conventional inhibitions. Susan lets us know that

Henchard had spoken this way often before, and it would, I think, be naïve

to suppose that Henchard did not actually feel what he said. In any case,

that is a matter for the judgment of our respondents.

After a few months, Henchard gives up looking for his wife and child, and he

spends the next eighteen years doing exactly what he said he wanted to

do-get rich and become a man of social standing. It would simply be

non-sense to deny that the desire to get rich can be a clear-cut motive, or

that in Henchard's case it is such a motive. Once his wife comes back, with

a child he mistakenly thinks his own, he is eager to make amends-he is a man

of some conscience. But at that point it is of little cost to him. It no

longer stands in his way. The reader has to judge the relative force of

these motives-sustaining a marriage and getting rich--in the whole course of

Henchard's life.

In their various, rather confused ways, both Professor Wilson and Professor

Schweik have argued that motives are too complex and variable to be

meaningfully reduced to the categories under analysis in the Mayor of

Casterbridge. They are both mistaken. Complex motivational states are

constituted by combinations of distinct motives. A character might desire

both to take care of his family and also to get rid of them so that he can

get rich. His state of mind might be called complex, and it is certainly

conflicting, but the conflict is constituted by a clash between two simple,

basic motives.

This is where we started, and after all the fuss, ill temper, and bad

manners, the argument has not actually progressed. There really isn't much

point in continuing to assert, with whatever rhetorical variations, that

complex and conflicting motives can't be reduced to their simpler

constituent elements. That simply is not true.

==========

From: Carolyn.McGrath@newham.gov.uk

Subject: A, B or C?

Date: September 14, 2005 2:47:58 AM PDT

To: HARDY-L@csusm.edu

Reply-To: HARDY-L@csusm.edu

I thank my lucky stars that I stayed in the ranks of 'all and sundry' when I

read these discussions - the argument is legitimate but the tone is

difficult to fathom for those of us outside academia . I laughed when I

received my invitation, as a 'scholar' and an 'expert', to contribute to

this questionnaire and decided, in the interests of science, not to

contaminate the results with my unprofessional opinions. Although I was

comforted by the the thought of anonymity, and the option of ' I can't

remember' reassured that me that the alcohol consumption is as high as ever

in University circles, it appeared to me - from my professional point of

view as a secondary school teacher - that the value of a multiple choice

strategy, such as this, is in the discussion it generates, the need to refer

back to the text, the challenge of considering alternative responses to

one's own and an enriched understanding of arts' relation to life, including

the pupils' own lives. I would expect better writing in response to an essay

question to arise from such a discussion; it will be interesting to see what

comes out of an analysis of the responses to this questionnaire - a barchart

maybe?

Yours, ever so 'umbly

Carolyn McGrath

EMAT Advisory Teacher

Internal: 85024

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From: kgwilson@uottawa.ca

Subject: Re: motives simple and complex

Date: September 14, 2005 4:07:38 AM PDT

I agree with Professor Carroll that this discussion is going round in

circles, founded as it is in fundamental differences of opinion about how

both people and novels can productively be assumed to operate. I'm happy

to brighten Roy Buckle's day by bringing my part in the exchange to an

end.

All best wishes,

Keith Wilson

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From: Rosemarie.morgan@yale.edu

Subject: Re: A, B or C?

Date: September 14, 2005 6:06:02 AM PDT

Hello Carolyn -

Thank you for the light relief. It's always good to hear from you.

Now this makes good sense! Multiple Choice tests to generate discussion, as a classroom learning aid (or even as a Forum stimulus!). I was trying to think of other contexts -- for example, in Connecticut we have to answer Multiple Choice questions when taking our driving test (this more or less guarantees that everyone passes the test, given the way the Multiple Choice questions are formulated). But that of course generates no discussion. The other contexts that come to mind are the Multiple Choice quizzes you get on those horoscope machines -- questions such as "Do you know your next destination in life?" "Yes/No" -- or in women's magazines, "Do you like to kiss on a first date?" "Yes/No". Now those kind of Multiple Choicers, if memory serves me, used to provoke much discussion and great hilarity. So, I would imagine that anything that gets secondary school students engaged, in this case with the literary text, is invaluable.

Thank you for giving this topic a new dimension. Did you try, by the way, giving your students The Mayor of Casterbridge questionnaire and if so, could you give us some idea of where the ensuing discussion went?

All good wishes,

Rosemarie

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From: wesspix1@btinternet.com

Subject: Re: A, B or C?

Date: September 14, 2005 6:20:53 AM PDT

Some multiple choice suggestions:

1. You are an aspiring pub landlord who has recently come into some money. Do you:

A) Buy a much bigger house, and look after your lovely wife and new child

B) Give the pub a refit and a stupid, modern-sounding name like the Slug and Lettuce

C) Run off with an emotionally unbalanced woman and drown in a weir

2. You are a schoolmistress and talented organist whose father is quite rich. Do you:

A) Marry a vicar and have a boring life

B) Marry a rich farmer and have an equally boring life

C) Marry a penniless white-van-man, have nine children and die in poverty

3. You are a talented stonemason with an interest in Gothic. Do you:

A) Get fooled by the local loose woman into thinking she's pregnant and marry her

B) Run off with your cousin, knowing it's a doomed relationship

C) Have unrealistic ideas about your educational prospects

D) All of the above.

Yeah, I could see it might work.

Gary Alderson

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From: englishnovels@yahoo.com

Subject: Re: motives simple and complex

Date: September 14, 2005 7:01:35 AM PDT

.edu

What has surprised me most about this conversation is

how quickly it has turned sour and unproductive. The

Mayor study is an experiment. It may well fail. Give

us a chance to fail (I am a collaborator on the

project). Because even its failure will be

instructive. If, for instance, responses on

Henchard's motives come back as a soup, that will go a

long way toward justifying the criticism of some

members of this list. We know that this outcome is a

definite possibility. (In our larger study of 200 19th

C novels preliminary data suggests that some of our

hypotheses are well supported and some are not). The

difference between our position and those of some

other participants in this conversation is that the

latter group assumes that they Know the answer to this

question (things complex in literature do not submit

to reductive scientific methodology). We don't assume

that this is true in all cases, though we agree that

it is true in many cases. So we set up an experiment

to try to gain an idea of what submits to

quantification and what doesn't. We aren't offering

this as an alternative to traditional humanistic modes

of analysis--no!--we are exploring how scientific

methodologies may help to complement those traditional

approaches.

I'm sorry for trying the patience of list members who

are bored of this discussion. I'll confine my future

discussions--unless provoked :)--to private exchanges.

Best wishes to all,

Jonathan Gottschall

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From: Rosemarie.morgan@yale.edu

Subject: Re: motives simple and complex

Date: September 14, 2005 7:48:14 AM PDT

I for one, thank you for your reasoned response, Jonathan Gottschall .

I think we were all very disappointed that our queries and criticisms were subjected to unremitting sophistry and other forms of specious reasoning by a man claiming to be an educator. Inevitably there ensued not a little ire. And hence the unproductive turn in the discussion which perhaps would have yielded a modicum of enlightenment (some of which you provide).

You will appreciate that we are also concerned about the quality of education our students receive. As you know, Multiple Choice tests have been held largely responsible, if only to cite one important department of our education system, SAT examinations, for the alarmingly low level of literacy in our nation's schools.

I did not mention in my last posting that to pass the Multiple Choice driving test you do not need to be literate. You are entitled to an "interpreter" who will read the test questions and the test responses. All you have to do is to punch the checking window of your choice. This may seem irrelevant to the current issue. To my mind it reflects far deeper problems in our education system and, indeed, in our society.

It would also help (in my case, at any rate), if your mailing list were efficiently organised. I have received requests to complete your questionnaire at least four times.

With every good wish,

Rosemarie Morgan

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From: Carolyn.McGrath@newham.gov.uk

Subject: RE: A, B or C?

Date: September 15, 2005 5:39:27 AM PDT

Thanks, Rosemarie, for appreciating my brand of humour.

Unfortunately I haven't taught Hardy, except for 'The Withered Arm', but I do push poems people's way whenever I can.I did do a multiple choice on 'Romeo and Juliet' I remember well that was along the lines of who pupils held responsible for specific events at key points throughout the play. It led to some very committed essay writing arguing who/what they held responsible for the lovers' deaths. There was a variety in opinion which was what was so rich and the focus was on how well they could support and structure their arguments in their own essays rather than seeking whole class consensus. That worked well. On the other hand, I once went on some teacher training where we completed Cosmopolitan style multiple choice questions to 'discover' our 'teaching style' - you were finally labelled a tortoise, hare, lion or fish (don't ask!) so some care must be taken not to descend to the ludicrous.

One famous multiple choice format that goes down well with school students is the 'Who wants to be a millionaire?' quiz show. Does it have the same name in the USA? I think it might be 'So you wanna million!' but I could have dreamt that. The 50-50, ask the audience and phone a friend lifelines are great fun and keep everyone involved. You can add the necessity of giving a valid reason for the choice, you can have a panel of 'judges' who compiled the questions and there is always the right of appeal.

Game shows in general are a good source of familiar formats that can be adapted. Maybe there is mileage in this thinking for opening up discussion on the forum and, dearer to my heart, the POTM site. I await some good-humoured and imaginative suggestions from this forum.

best wishes to Fred - if he hasn't already departed. I enjoyed his brief company on POTM

best wishes

Carolyn

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From: Rosemarie.morgan@yale.edu

Subject: RE: A, B or C?

Date: September 15, 2005 7:45:50 PM PDT

Greetings again, dear -- er "Tortoise"? (hope I've got my Aesop's right) -

You sound like a most imaginative teacher and I hope your pupils appreciate you.

I think teaching the literary text in conjunction with film narrative works well for similar reasons - provocative! After all, everyone pricks up their ears when they hear the story they "know" being told differently ( "No! No! dear -- he didn't say that..."), and there's nothing like an fine, artistic movie transcription for getting students going on issues of interpretation, representation and even the subtleties of semiotics and cultural valorisation.

Good Luck with Cosmo et al!

Cheers

Rosemarie

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