Resumo de The Short And Happy Life Of Francis Macomber

Hemingway successfully paints a stark African landscape in terse and laconic prose in this short story, which is about a middle aged American man on an African safari, the short story often considered by some to be his best was based on the author?s own safari. The man is Francis macomber an out of sorts? naïve American man, who is a long way out of his element in the African bush. His wife the socialite is a constant murmur in the background. The story starts when our great white hunter has run away, bolted like a rabbit on seeing a lion up close. The craven character of Mr. Francis Macomber and how he overcomes it to be happy in the end is what the story is basically about, his happiness is however very short lived and that makes up the title of the book.
Francis macomber is one of the most successful characters ever created by Hemingway, he was a writer who told his story by the brilliant use of narrative, and not characterization, however you cannot help but feel macomber?s character undergoing a change from naivety into full blooded manliness, he suddenly finds himself and his lost manhood in the African bush, all this occurs as his wife is having sex with their English guide.
Macomber loses all his self respect when he runs away from a charging lion, a lion he has wounded. The English guide thinks he?s a spineless city banker and shows his disgust, their African coolies or porters and gun bearer?s snicker at macombers back, his wife decides that the best thing to do after having just seen that her husband is a coward would be to have sex with their manly and grim Guide. Out of this morass of malice, condescension and mockery, macomber must crawl out to prove himself and he goes about it very school boyish way. Hemingway gives the character of macomber a wrong footedness that is striking and comical, he goes about in a daze trying to convince himself of his manhood of his courage, you can almost see him through the pages, sweating and fuming under the acacia?s muttering words of encouragement to himself, while the English guide and his wife look on scornfully.
Macomber finds his feet, green though they are, somewhere in the middle of the story, and is a professional towards the end, the author is remarkably successful in conveying this attitudinal shift in his hero, who has suddenly lost his boyishness. The character of the wife, or Mrs. Macomber is painted less ably but this is almost always true of all of Hemingway?s works, she is however not a spring chicken, somewhere in the spine of this ex-model you can feel an urge for something better. She wants to leave Macomber when he runs away from the lion at the beginning of the story, but as she thinks and the story progresses she feels less inclined towards that course of action, there is some weakness in her character as well, she wants to tell macomber how stupid and craven she thinks he is by lying with the camp guide. There is something of the helplessness of a child in her, she wants to hurt macomber by using her body and lets it be none too obvious. Macomber is enraged of course but he is still a coward and swallows the insult of their camp guide sharing a bed with his wife as the necessary result of his show of spinelessness.
The setting of the scene being in Africa does help out the story, you can easily pick up the main characters and motives and thoughts become cleanly visible in the sunny bush. Our reluctant hero resolves to conquer his fear, to go one up on the wife seducing Englishman, to decide whether he should divorce and leave her once they are back in the states, this thoughts go through Francis Maconbers mind as he raises after African buffalo, he is determined to bag his trophy, if not a lion he tells himself, the buffalo will have to do. Even their English hunter and Guide begins to believe in the essential bravery of our hero, he looks in awe at macomber?s recklessness and coolness in front of the animals while they are chasing the buffalo, the guuide suddenly finds he likes macomber after all, in his heart of heart?s this green foot from a city was a great white hunter in the end. We as the readers are of course rejoicing at macomber?s new found courage and leaping and rolling with him as he gives chase to the buffalo in the bush. This is when the story takes the twist in the tale.
Mrs. Macomber who has been following behind in a vehicle and who has seen macomber?s new found courage in the face of danger decides to help out when it seems macomber is about to be gored to death by a charging bull, she shoots and of course misses the bull, but her bullet finds macomber in the back of the skull and our reluctant hero ends his short awakening into courage and manhood and happiness then and there. What we are left to ponder is whether the shot by Mrs. Macomber could have been a fluke or was it intentional?

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