Analisi in inglese basata sul racconto "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" di E. Hemingway

LIFE OF FRANCIS

MACOMBER

By Ernest Hemingway

Summary

“The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber” is a Hemingway’s short story, which belongs to

“The Fifth Column and the First Forty-Nine Stories”, published in 1938.

The story begins in “medias res”. The reader immediately gets to know the protagonists: Francis

Macomber, his wife Margaret and Robert Wilson. Mr. and Mrs. Macomber are on a safari in Africa

and Wilson, a professional hunter, is their personal guide. During lunchtime they are pretending that

nothing happened. The first evident thing is the foregrounding of the humiliating accident that had

occurred before lunch: they went hunting for lions and when Mr. Macomber should have given the

final blow to the lion, he got scared and ran away, showing this way everybody that he was a

coward. His wife kissed Wilson on the mouth in front of him, in order to show all her

disappointment. She could not hide her resentment and humiliation about his breakdown, and she

has been reminding him constantly what occurred.

Mr. Macomber could not stop worrying about his failure and what the other people might think of

him. Wilson suggested him to stop thinking about the lion, to forget the accident and enjoy the

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safari. Macomber decided to improve the situation with the buffaloes in fact, the next day they

were supposed to go hunting.

During that night, Macomber could not sleep and suddenly he noticed that his wife was not in their

tent. She arrived there a few hours later and she did not hide to Macomber that she was with another

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man the hunter Wilson. The next morning they went hunting again, but the tension between the

couple and the hunter was in the air. When they saw some buffaloes, Macomber felt more confident

than the day before and shot immediately the biggest one, while the other two ran away. Margaret

noticed that his attitude changed. He seemed braver, and she felt bothered that he regained self

confidence. One of the buffaloes, that ran away, came back getting very close to them. It was

dangerous, so Wilson and Macomber shot it. Margaret gave a shot too, however, she killed her

husband instead of the animal. She fell down crying, but it was too late.

Main features of the story

This story is considered one of Hemingway’s most successful artistic achievements. It is a moral

tragedy tipped with irony. Hemingway is well known for his technique of leaving the reader with an

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unresolved ending, which is especially evident in this story. The question that Hemingway leaves

here is a huge question related to the death of Francis Macomber: was it accidental or intentional?

He left numerous clues to help the reader determine his own conclusion.

As the reader can notice from the very beginning of the story, the narrator is a heterodiegetic

positive narrator (category B narrator), because the facts are written in third person and the narrator

seems to know everything. of the story is seen through Wilson’s eyes, but the narrator

The point of view is shifting: a large part

gives a lot of space also to Macomber’s inner thoughts. A portion of the story is even witnessed

from the point of view of the wounded lion.

The story takes place in Africa, probably in the first half of the twentieth century, which was also

the time in which Hemingway lived. Mr. and Mrs. Macomber are on a safari, but the narrator did

not specify exactly in which part of Africa. Maybe the event occurs in Kenya, as in the end Wilson

says: “I’ll have to send a truck off to the lake to wireless for a plane to take the three of us into

Nairobi is the capital city of Kenya.

Nairobi”;

As said before, the story begins in “medias res”: not from the beginning of the story, but in the

middle. What happened at the very start of it, is the episode that Macomber had with the lion. After

that the Macombers and Wilson are having lunch. They are trying to avoid to talk about the

humiliating episode.

The main theme in the story is courage. Francis Macomber was suddenly presented as a coward,

because he was not brave enough to kill a lion. The reader can find some others sub-themes, which

are: corrupting power of women, money and men hunting and bravely killing animals for their own

pleasure. Analysis of the characters

Francis Macomber

He is the protagonist of the story. He is a wealthy, shy and honorable American of the age of 35.

The narrator describes him as a “very tall man, very well built, if you did not mind that length of

lipped.” Macomber is good at court games

bone, dark, his hair cropped like an oarsman, rather thin

and he had a number of big-game fishing records. The narrator says he was considered handsome.

The word “considered” can make the reader think that he wasn’t handsome, but people considered

him handsome because of his athletic body, money and an excellent career. 3

episode “Macomber’s hands were shaking and as he walked away from the car it

During the lion's

was almost impossible for him to make his legs move; they were stiff in the thighs, but he could feel

fluttering.” This sentence expresses his fear at its most. When Wilson said that they

the muscles

have to ensure that the lion is dead, Macomber tried to avoid this by giving a lot of useless answers.

Wilson said that is not obligatory for him to go to the dying lion, but Macomber insisted to. When

happened: he ran away. Margaret “punished” him by kissing Wilson

he saw the lion, the worst has

on the mouth in front of him. Now, he said, “he knew that his wife was through with him”.

After that episode Macomber had shown publicly to be a coward. He was sad, his honour was hurt

and he compared himself to a rabbit (“I bolted like a rabbit”).He apologized Wilson many times and

asked him not to tell anyone about the occurred. Wilson tried to calm him and suggested him to

forget about the accident.

Later, the reader discovers something interesting about Mr. and Mrs. Macombers’ relationship. They

have been married for eleven years and their marriage was founded on the prerequisite that

Margaret would not have left Francis, because he was very wealthy man; Francis could never leave

Margaret, because she was a great beauty. Clues left by the narrator point toward two main

infidelity and Francis’

problems in their marriage: Margaret’s lack of confidence. Macomber is

continuously frightened by the thought of his wife leaving him. They were, in a sense, completing

each other and even if Margaret had cheated Francis many times, they were still together. “All in all

they were known as a comparatively happily married couple, one of those whose disruption is often

rumored but never occurs” states the narrator.

During that night Macomber realized that his wife was not in their tent. When she came back, she

did not hide that she was with another man (Wilson). Her habitual infidelity comes to light in the

below conversation:

Francis: “Where have you been?”

Margaret: “Out to get a breath of air.”

Francis: “That’s a new name for it.”

His statements: “There was not going to be any of that. You promised there would not be” and “You

don’t wait long when you have an advantage, do you?” make the reader think that in more than one

occasion Margaret has been unfaithful to her husband and confirms that she does not care much

about the feelings of her husband. Perhaps, they went to Africa because they had been trying to save

their marriage and fall in love again (if the love has ever been there).

The next morning when Macomber saw Wilson, his respect for him vanished. While arguing with

Margaret, Macomber called him “insolent bastard” and “red-faced When they went hunting

swine”.

all together Macomber killed one of the buffaloes bravely. Once he shot the biggest one, he got

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excited and for the first time in his life, he felt without fear at all. This fact is witnessed by the

statements: “Instead of fear he had a feeling of definite elation” and “Something in me happened

after we first saw the buffalo and started after him. Like a dam bursting. It was pure excitement.”

Macomber was so excited that it seemed he forgot that his wife had cheated him with Wilson. He

revealed them his life motto by quoting Shakespeare: “Worst one can do is kill you. By my troth, I

care not; a man can die but once; we owe God a death and let it go which way it will, he that dies

this year is quit for the next.” The fact that he knew this quotation by heart may mean that he had a

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good education. When he finished quoting Shakespeare, he was very embarrassed he showed his

inner feelings and suddenly he realized whom had them shown to.

He is a character that has grown from the beginning to the end of the story and in the very end died.

I have noticed an interesting fact that witnesses about his growth. At the beginning of the story, after

the episode with the lion, he proposed to drink lime juice or lemon squash (soft drinks), which was

refused by Wilson and Margaret, who wanted a gimlet. He adapted to the other two, probably he did

“inferior”, and took a gimlet

not want to be as well. In the end, when Macomber regained self

confidence, he drank drinks like whiskey. When Wilson asked him if he wanted some more, he

intrepidly accepted.

Margaret Macomber

Carlos Baker wrote that she is “easily the most unscrupulous of Hemingway’s fictional females.”

Macomber is Francis’ wife. The narrator describes her as an “extremely

Margaret or Margot woman”. Five years before a company had paid her over five thousand

handsome and well-kept –

dollars to endorse with photographs a beauty product which she has never used. This means that

she was a real beauty and a popular woman, she was regarded as it and she was totally aware of

this.

As said before, she married Macomber only for his money and she has been unfaithful in more than

one occasion. She is a very mean and domineering personality. She is aware of the power that she

has on her husband and uses it to make him suffer. For instance, Macomber tried to minimize the

episode of the lion, but Margaret was continuously tormenting him: firstly she kissed Wilson, then

she cried because of her husband’s “cowardice”, then she ignored Macomber, she compared him to

Wilson etc.

During the night when Macomber found out that she was not in their tent, and Margaret got back,

she did not even try to make a serious effort in order to hide that she was with someone else. Then

she referred to him by calling him “darling” and “sweet”. She was talking to him in an excessively

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sweet manner this is an example of verbal irony. The reader can perceive it as very false, because

she was literally making fun of him and she knew he was painful.

One of the peculiarities of Margaret’s