Jon Hamm’s Greatest Don Draper Line Tells Fans Everything They Need to Know About Mad Men

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Throughout Mad Men, Don Draper experiences several defining moments that fundamentally change him. Because the show is consistently excellent, these key events in Don’s life offer powerful insights. Fans don’t just get a life lesson from the series; they gain a deeper understanding of the complex man behind both Dick Whitman and Don Draper.

Don is at his lowest point after the death of Anna Draper, the only person who knew his true past. Struggling with this new loss and a weakening sense of identity, he starts writing in a journal to process his grief. At the same time, Peggy faces a challenging situation in her career. Don’s guidance helps her, and in doing so, reveals a lot about the man he is – a man who built a new life for himself by assuming another’s identity.

Don Draper Saw Himself In Peggy Early On

Peggy stood out from the other women at the office right away. While she was inexperienced, she had a strong ambition that most of her colleagues didn’t. As the 1960s and the Women’s Rights Movement began, Peggy was a trailblazer, challenging the status quo. The differences between her and Joan Harris were immediately apparent, and Joan took Peggy under her wing, teaching her the traditional, and ultimately problematic, idea of leveraging her appearance to succeed at work.

Initially, Peggy took Joan’s guidance, but eventually realized her own worth. When she first responded to Pete’s attention, she hadn’t yet developed a sense of self-respect. However, after Pete got married, she started to see things differently. At Sterling Cooper, the men didn’t view the secretaries as individuals – they treated them like objects.

Don never viewed Peggy romantically. Perhaps it was because he firmly established boundaries with her early on, when she made a suggestive gesture in his office. Even after he rejected her advances, she continued to come to work each day and proved herself capable, earning his respect. He began to appreciate her, and watching her navigate the challenges of being a woman in a male-dominated field reminded him of his own difficult beginnings, of a young Dick Whitman fighting to overcome a harsh past.

Both characters are essentially creating new versions of themselves, striving to live as they desire instead of conforming to societal expectations. Dick Whitman completely reinvented himself as Don Draper, and while Peggy didn’t go to such extremes, she significantly altered her life to pursue her ambitions. This made her an ideal mentee for someone like Don Draper.

At Its Core, Mad Men Is a Story About Taking the Life You Want

By the time we meet Peggy in “The Summer Man,” she’s an established copywriter with more authority than any other woman at Sterling Cooper, even Joan. Joan, who worked hard to climb the ranks as a secretary, feels a mix of resentment and admiration for Peggy. Peggy achieved success through her intelligence, not by relying on her looks or engaging in relationships, which Joan finds frustrating given the path she herself took.

Joey Baird, a cartoonist, and Joan have a major disagreement when Joey makes sexist and offensive remarks about her. He then repeatedly tries to embarrass and belittle her, culminating in him drawing a sexually suggestive cartoon and posting it on her office door. When Peggy attempts to reason with him, his behavior is so shocking that even she is disturbed, and she brings the issue to Don’s attention.

Don has stopped guiding Peggy and now expects her to take initiative with the power he’s given her. When she asks for his guidance, he surprisingly tells her to fire him. It’s during this conversation that he delivers one of the show’s most memorable lines, telling Peggy, “If you want respect, you have to earn it yourself!”

Don Draper’s Advice to Peggy Works for Him, but Backfires On Her

What really struck me about that scene wasn’t just Don sharing what he thought helped him, but how completely it flopped with Peggy. Honestly, I think Peggy was lucky to have someone like Don recognize her talent and give her a boost. So many people at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce didn’t believe she deserved to be there, so his support, even if misguided in how he delivered it, meant a lot.

This isn’t just Don giving Peggy advice; it’s him reflecting on his own past. He remembers how he transformed his life, escaping a difficult background to become the successful Don Draper. He earned the respect that Dick Whitman never could, and now he sees Peggy in a similar position. If he could rise above his circumstances, why can’t she?

CBR Report

CBR Report

The most upsetting thing about this advice is that it doesn’t seem to help Peggy, especially considering how things might have gone if Don had been the one to let her go. Instead of resolving things, it actually makes the tension between Joan and Peggy worse, and unfortunately, it makes Peggy look bad to her colleagues, both men and women.

Mad Men Spent 7 Seasons Trying to Help Don Draper Figure Out Who He Was

The irony of Don’s advice to Peggy in Season 4 is that it only provided a short-term solution, even for himself. While he initially achieved the respect he desired, his life began to fall apart after he lost everything he’d built. Ultimately, he lost the respect of those he valued most – his children – because he essentially stole their history and sense of identity by living a lie.

Don Draper carried a lot of anger towards his father, both for the way he was treated and for being left to face life alone. He desperately wanted to be a good father himself, but his own issues prevented him from forming meaningful connections even before his children were born. This makes the guidance he offered Peggy all the more poignant. Ultimately, by pursuing what he thought he wanted, Don was actually hurting himself, as long as he continued to hide his true identity.

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2025-12-21 18:14