Francis Macomber

Essay on ”The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber”
The text “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber” is a short story written in 1936 by an author called Ernest Hemingway. The story revolves around three people; a man called Francis Macomber, his wife Margot and another man called Robert Wilson. The story isn’t narrated from a fixed point of view, but changes multiple times throughout the story. The story isn’t chronological, as there is a long flashback in the middle of the story. Francis Macomber is a very wealthy American man. Although we aren’t told what his profession is, my guess would be that he is some sort of big-name businessman, as we are told that his wealth is only going to grow, and he is regularly featured in magazines together
Margaret Macomber is a very handsome woman, who is married to Francis. She doesn’t seem to have a profession of her own, but we are told she does earn some money off of her beauty. Margaret is a extremely unlikeable character, she is completely stripped of empathy, and seems to care for nothing but her own needs. Robert Wilson is an English professional hunter, who is residing in Africa, earning his money by taking rich foreigners out to realize their dream of killing lions, buffalos, rhinos and other animals that doesn’t live in the western world. Robert seems to enjoy his job of guiding rich people through Africa, not just because of his love for hunting, but also because of the extra benefits that comes along with guiding around the young wives of older wealthy men “He had hunted for a certain clientele, the international, fast, sporting set, where the women did not feel they were getting their money’s worth unless they had shared that cot with the white hunter.” All in all Wilson seems as the ultimate free man, and therefore fits perfectly with the demands of a code hero. He follows rules when he has to, but doesn’t really respect them, and if he sees them to be unjust, he makes up
It isn’t long though before we find out that not everything is going exactly as they had planned. “He was dressed in the same sort of safari clothes that Wilson wore except that his were new, he was thirty-five years old, kept himself very fit, was good at court games, had a number of big-game fishing records, and had just shown himself, very publicly, to be a coward.”. The four people seem to try to ignore it, as they go on with their routines without showing indications of any major events having taken place. This facade isn’t kept for long, as Margaret storms of in tears. When she leaves the 2 men stay behind, and we get some more info on what has happened earlier on. We are told that Francis had run from something, but we aren’t told exactly why he did so, and from what he ran. As Margaret returns and the three of them eat there are dropped some more subtle hints on what had happened. Maragaret taunts Francis with his cowardice, and also drops some ironic remarks about the lion, which leads us to thinking that it was the lion that Francis ran away from. We are then told the story about the lion. Francis thinks back on the night before, where the lion’s roars had kept him awake, and they terrified him a great deal. The following morning Margaret can tell that he isn’t feeling well, but being a man, who values his pride he doesn’t want to tell her, although, he eventually does. But after