She had told him that she loved him, and Tom Buchanan saw. He was astounded. His mouth opened a little, and he looked at Gatsby, and then back at Daisy as if he had just recognized her as someone he knew a long time ago.
Chapter 7 · Narrator
Context
Nick interprets Daisy's remark about Gatsby looking 'cool' as an implicit declaration of love. Tom, observing the exchange, suddenly recognizes the depth of the connection between his wife and Gatsby—a realization that triggers his insistence on confrontation.
Analysis
The simile 'as if he had just recognized her as someone he knew a long time ago' is psychologically acute: Tom's astonishment is not merely jealousy but a moment of estrangement—he suddenly perceives Daisy as a stranger, someone with an interior life and desires entirely separate from him. This mirrors Gatsby's experience of the child: both men are forced to confront aspects of Daisy's reality they had chosen not to see, suggesting that all the men in the novel relate to Daisy as a projection rather than a person.
How to Use in Essay
Effective for essays on how both Tom and Gatsby treat Daisy as a possession whose independent agency shocks them, or for analyzing how the novel structures its central conflict around male characters' competing claims on a woman they do not truly know.