Analysis of Tom and Maggie’s Relationship

I think most of the problems with Tom and Maggie's relationship are due to the fact that Tom thinks that

females are inferior to males. He therefore thinks that Maggie is inferior to him and he shows this in the

way that he treats Maggie.

Tom and Maggie both have a strong relationship with their father so therefore he could have influenced

Tom's thoughts. "She'll fetch none the bigger price for that", their dad said this, and by it he means that

even though Maggie is clever she won't do any better as regards to marriage. This is a very sexist way for

Tom and Maggie's dad to talk about Maggie, as if females are only supposed to get married and produce

children and that their intelligence doesn't matter.

If Tom's dad thinks like that it could be from his dad that Tom gets his sexist nature: "I told you girls

couldn't learn Latin", this is one of the most openly sexist comments Tom makes in the book. Tom very

strongly gets his point across by using harsh words such as "told" and "couldn't". This shows how inferior

he feels females are, he said, "I told you" almost scornfully as if he's trying to say that if he said it, it must

be right which isn't the case. Tom's complete sexist attitude is shown by the word "girls" here he

generalises about any females ability to learn Latin although I'm sure that isn't the case and he just makes

the comment purely because of his sexist nature.