The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber was written by Hemingway and it is about a wealthy couple and their friend on a hunt. At the beginning of the story, Francis, Margot and Robert, the professional hunter, are having lunch and drinking gimlet. Everybody is protecting Francis because he showed to be a coward in front of many people and he is a man which means that he is supposed to be brave. His wife is a woman of extraordinary beauty and she is not happy about the fact that her husband turned up to be such a man.
Margot is the kind of woman who is in charge of her marriage and she married Francis because he had a weaker personality than hers. The narrator thinks that such women make men seem soft: “Or is it that they pick men they can handle?” (Hemingway 4). She is a strong-minded woman who always gets what she wants and she is so beautiful that people might think she is stupid at first because of her physical perfection. However, that is far from the truth because she is a woman ready to do anything and she kills Francis on purpose and not by accident.
Francis is an attractive man who is thirty-five years old, although he looks as if he were an adolescent. Both he and his wife put much effort in their physical appearance. Even going on a hunting trip and hiring a professional hunter proves that they care about prestige more than about anything else. It is important to them how the world perceives that and they shape their behavior accordingly.
After the incident with the lion, Francis feels thoroughly ashamed and his wife is teasing him in an indirect way. Robert Wilson is a professional and would prefer to forget that the whole situation with Francis turning out to be a coward ever happened because it is not fun to listen to a grown-up man wine so much. Robert assures him that nobody can find out about this event. He says: “I’m a professional hunter. We never talk about our clients” (Hemingway 3). This is the assurance that the truth will be safe with Wilson.
Francis keeps worrying about what happened to him and the lion because of other people. His next decision is to shoot a buffalo so that he could make things right this time. Margot is cruel towards her husband and that is what Robert is thinking about for the whole time. She cannot be blamed because her husband was not a man of courage and he pretended to be in their marriage. The night before the incident with the lion, Francis was afraid when he heard the roar of the lion in his tent and this must have predestined his failure the next day. He cannot forgive himself for that and neither can Margot. The hunt was disastrous because Francis is not capable of killing the lion and this is where Robert takes place. This is a great humiliation for Margot. At that point she decides to kiss Robert: “He turned and she had leaned forward over the low seat and kissed him on the mouth” (Hemingway 10). This hurts Francis even more, but he deserves this because of the way he treats his wife. He is rich and this is his way of keeping Margot by his side and show her off like a trophy. This is what Margot cannot stand anymore and this is her opportunity to get even. She even has sex with Robert and she shows it off because she is ready to get rid of Francis.
The hunt of the buffalo goes well for Francis and he is about to make a celebration. However, it turns out that the animal is not dead and for the second time, it is up to Robert to kill it. Margo takes the gun and shoots Francis in his head pretending to be aiming at the buffalo. Francis is dead and Robert believes that she did it on purpose. It is obvious that this whole trip was her way of getting away with murder because anybody can get killed while on a hunting expedition where accidents happen.
References
Hemingway, E. (1970). The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber and Other Stories. London, United Kingdon: Penguin Books.
