comment on the significance of titling in The Mayor of Casterbridge

I'll start by stating the obvious; the book is about some guy who becomes he "Mayor of Casterbridge." It doesn't get any simpler than that but wait, there is a sub-title to this piece. The sub-title states that this is about "The Life and Death of a Man of Character." So, we can infer there is more going on in this guy's life. There isn't a happy ending to this because we can assume he was a good guy who died before he should have because the world isn't fair.