# Horace Tarbox — Short Fiction character guide

> Horace Tarbox in Short Fiction by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

**Role:** major

**Also known as:** Horace

**First appearance:** 0005-head-and-shoulders

## Snapshot

A brilliant young scholar whose orderly, precocious life is upended when he falls for a woman whose world he cannot theorize his way through.

## Who they are

Horace Tarbox has spent his youth as a prodigy, performing intellectual feats for applause, until love introduces him to a kind of knowledge his books never covered. His devotion to Marcia—and his willingness to become a father, a husband, and a reader of her handwritten pages—marks his passage from abstraction into the messy, tender particulars of another person's life. His early certainty makes his later bewilderment both comic and moving.

## Relationships

### [Marcia Meadow](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_16_se/characters/marcia_meadow)

_romantic_

The intellectual Horace is drawn into a romantic relationship with the vivacious and unconventional Marcia, creating a clash of worlds.

### [Marcia Meadow](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_16_se/characters/marcia_meadow)

_romantic_

The intellectual Horace is drawn into a romantic relationship with the vivacious and unconventional Marcia, creating a clash of worlds.

### [Marcia Meadow](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_16_se/characters/marcia_meadow)

_romantic_

The intellectual Horace is drawn into a romantic relationship with the vivacious and unconventional Marcia, creating a clash of worlds.

## In the story

### [Head and Shoulders](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_16_se/chapters/head-and-shoulders)

A 15-year-old prodigy who has completed Yale and is pursuing a PhD at Princeton. He falls in love with Marcia Meadow and abandons his academic career for her.

### [I](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_16_se/chapters/i)

A thirteen-year-old prodigy who excels in entrance exams and later attends Yale, deeply absorbed in philosophy and detached from everyday life.

### [II](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_16_se/chapters/ii)

Attends 'Home James' to see Marcia Meadow, feels out of place at the Taft Grill, and plans to visit her in New York when he turns eighteen.

### [III](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_16_se/chapters/iii)

Watches Marcia from the audience, follows her to her apartment, and proposes marriage.

### [IV](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_16_se/chapters/iv)

Marries Marcia, works as a clerk, takes up gymnastics, and supports Marcia's writing.

### [Sandra Pepys, Syncopated](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_16_se/chapters/v)

Reflects on his career shift from philosophy to vaudeville, feels overshadowed by Marcia's success, and reacts bitterly to a condescending newspaper article.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_16_se/characters/horace_tarbox
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_16_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_16_se/characters