When she visits Tom's family for the first time, Cassy comments that the Fowles are nothing like the Austens and that "other families must be one of life's unfathomable mysteries" (47). Even more disturbing, she feels she does not know Tom anymore in this context: "She stood alone, looking around her, and was overcome by a sense of Tom's otherness. This was a man she had known since a boy! At Steventon he was familiar; yet here, here he was...who was he, exactly? Cassy was no longer sure she knew" (48).
Is Tom to blame in some way? Is Cassy being too harsh, due to her own naivete? Have you had an experience like this in which you perceive someone entirely differently when you encounter them in a new context?