While everyone knows Mrs. Daisy Fay Buchanan from Louisville, Kentucky, her hulking husband boosted the Buchanan name to prestigious status with his background in athletics.
New Haven had never seen a better athlete in American football until Tom Buchanan hit the field. You might remember a few smashing headlines of his historical plays and record-breaking feats, as our informants certainly do.
“Among various physical accomplishments, [Tom] had been one of the most powerful ends that ever played football at New Haven—a national figure in a way.” – N.C.
(Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, Chapter 1).
But his popularity in New Haven quickly took a nosedive after he quit football and opted for polo instead, using his copious amounts of Buchanan wealth to pay for ponies, equipment, and entry fees to the most elite of competitions.
“He’d brought down a string of polo ponies from Lake Forest. It was hard to realize that a man in my own generation was wealthy enough to do that.” – N.C.
(Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, Chapter 1).
However, his career in polo did not nearly measure up to his college football days, merely a way to display wealth and maintain physical fitness. After all, everybody who plays polo is filthy rich, whether old money or new money, and the Buchanans have a history of wealth.
It seems like Mr. Buchanan is past his prime, developing quite the unlikable attitude and a certain distaste for anyone but himself, his wife, and the occasional pretty lady that catches his eye…
“[He’s] one of those men who reach such an acute limited excellence at twenty-one that everything afterward savours of anticlimax… His speaking voice, a gruff husky tenor, added to the impression of fractiousness he conveyed. There was a touch of paternal contempt in it, even toward people he liked—and there were men at New Haven who had hated his guts.” – N.C.
(Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, Chapter 1).
It’s hard to say what the future holds for Tom Buchanan, as he’ll always be chasing that high he felt during his college years. But for now, it seems that Mr. Buchanan will forever be playing with ponies and women’s hearts, rather than becoming the pride of his city once again.
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald. eBook #64317. Project Gutenberg, January 17, 2021, online.
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/64317/64317-h/64317-h.htm
