Under Milk Wood
Uploaded by cc_clare on Sep 04, 1999
The relationship between Tom and Maggie in Books 1 & 2
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.
Tom's sexism isn't just used against his sister, he uses it to put others down as well, "like a girl's: Tom thought that truly pitiable". The sexism Tom is showing here is by discriminating against Philip due to his hair apparently looking like a girls. He describes this as "truly pitiable" which shows how strongly he feels. Tom uses the word "girl" as an insult as if by calling Philip a girl he feels he has insulted him. This is a very sexist attitude, as he shouldn't be discriminating against females in this way.
Whenever Maggie acts in a way that Tom wouldn't, Tom automatically says she acts in that way, as she is a girl, "girlish way of taking things". This quotation is where Maggie gets agitated and Tom blames that on the fact that...