mahjae05’s Blog

“‘It’s a bitch,’ said Tom decisively. ‘Here’s your money. Go and buy ten more dogs with it.’” pg 28

Just as in the new Britney Spears song, Tom Buchanan is a womanizer. Not only is he cheating on his seemingly loyal and beautiful wife Daisy, but he also flouts it as if it didn’t matter. Though he does not sit with her on the train, everyone who knows Tom knows that he has this mistress. He just has very little respect for women and what they think and just uses them to get his “power fix”. The quote was striking because he seemed to intuitively know that the dog was a female despite what others thought. Tom has just gotten to a point in which he can just degrade and disrespect women without any repercussions. He seems to have an eye for the “weaknesses” of women and uses it to his advantage. Also, by telling the dog vendor to go buy ten more dogs, Tom showed how little he valued women. Each one is the same as the next and they are all worth just about the same. This way of thinking seems very strange considering the descriptions of Daisy given in the earlier chapter. Wearing white, which symbolizes many things, among them being beauty, purity, and most of all the unreachable, Daisy seems like the perfect fit for this power hungry Tom, and yet it seems as if he wants more. Just as captain Ahab, Tom’s need for more power and his quest for the top may be foreshadowing his impending downfall.