Ernest Hemingway’s “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber” depicts the societal pressures of having to “be a man. ” Francis Macomber develops as a character as he is successful multiple times on safari in killing animals, but does so with the help of many other key players that he fails to give credit to, such as the advantage of a moving vehicle and automatic weapon, or a gun bearer. Despite whether he actually exudes bravery or not, Macomber seems to think that by killing animals in this fashion, he proves himself as manly.
The story suggests that Macomber feels pressures to “be a man” from the outside as he buys into Wilson’s notion that he must go to ridiculously extreme lengths to express this masculinity; he ultimately tries to fill the role of what Wilson tells him a “man” is. Once Macomber fulfils what he thinks is masculine he becomes intensely egotistical and expresses unreasonable euphoria. Margot then questions his newfound elation and reveals to him that he is only now a “man” because of his mere ability to perform a set of tasks.
In the end, Macomber’s death marks his wife’s accusation of false manliness as true, when she is the one who ends up shooting him. His hyper-self-obsession and blindness reveal that Macomber has become a victim of the outside pressure he feels to be masculine. Macomber receives societal pressures to be a “man”, and what he comes to believe this means is defined by Wilson’s stance of what a “man” really is; Wilson influences where Macomber’s meaning of masculinity comes from, and, when Macomber fulfills it, rewards Macomber with reassurance. Hemingway uses the interactions between Macomber and Wilson to reveal this truth.
Macomber goes to great lengths to do what Wilson wants because he is so influenced by the pressure to be a “man. ” Even though Wilson’s ways of being manly initially irk or intimidate Macomber, he still shows his compliance to allowing his definition of manliness to come from others. In the story, “he was raising his rifle when Wilson shouted, ‘Not from the car, you fool! ’ and he had no fear, only hatred of Wilson” (28). While Macomber is not pleased when he is told to get out of the car, he still shows his submission to Wilson’s definition as he does whatever it takes prove his manliness.
At this point, he is not even scared by Wilson’s disapproval, rather abhorrent of Wilson’s requirement to get out of the car in order to be masculine. Despite hating him for it, Macomber still does what Wilson wants showing Wilson’s control of the definitions of manliness. Once Wilson gives Macomber the approval for his manliness, Margot questions whether Macomber was supposed to shoot from the car. In order to maintain that to be a man one must not cowardly shoot from a car, he defends Macomber’s initial shooting from the car by denying that it ever happened: “‘No one shot from cars,’ said Wilson coldly” (29).
The word “coldly” suggests that Wilson is almost threatening Margot to not question his decision in deeming Macomber a man. The bizarre stress that Wilson puts on Macomber maintaining his manliness, and Macomber’s begrudging but convinced compliance with Wilson’s demands reveal that Wilson controls what defines manliness for Macomber. Immediately after shooting the buffalo, Macomber becomes unreasonably euphoric, revealing how he believes he has fulfilled what it means to be a truly manly man.
By too-proudly flaunting his hunting success, Macomber shows how he blindly buys into what Wilson tells him being a man is as he is overjoyed that he finally fulfilled the definition. After shooting the buffalo, it is consistently repeated that Macomber is absurdly ecstatic in a way that he had never experienced in life before: immediately after shooting “Macomber felt a drunken elation” (29); once he returns to the car, Macomber “In his life he had never felt so good” (29); then, when recounting the chase with Margot, “Macomber felt a wild unreasonable happiness that he had never known before” (32).
His entire reaction is outlandish and annoying considering how much he was cowering in fear before shooting the animal. The words “wild,” “unreasonable,” and “drunken” stress the insanity of his emotions. The repetition of describing Macomber’s happiness magnifies how ridiculously attached Macomber is to fulfilling his manliness to the point that he becomes a slave to attempting to fulfill it. Wilson had expressed that to be a man one should not be cowardly, and Macomber expresses how pleased he is with himself in dispelling his previous fears.
He convinces himself that his newfound manliness has made him a changed person as, “For the first time in his life he really felt wholly without fear. Instead of fear he had a feeling of definite elation” (31). Macomber’s novel overconfidence in his abilities as a man confirm that he has completely bought into fulfilling what Wilson’s influences tell him a true man is. Macomber certainly believes that he has now triumphed in becoming the ultimate “man,” as he blindly accepts what people outside tell him this looks like.
Hemingway starts criticizing the idea that others define what is masculine and what is not as Margot reveals how crazy Macomber’s perception of his masculinity is; her outside perspective reinforces the falsity of Wilson’s manufactured idea of “being a man. ” Margot challenges Macomber’s flaunting brevity saying, “‘You’ve gotten awfully brave, awfully suddenly,’ his wife said contemptuously, but her contempt was not secure. She was very afraid of something” (34).
Margot’s overall tone is extremely sarcastic, depicting her disagreement with Macomber’s blind following of what Wilson says makes him a man. Not only does Margot point out his oblivion, but she is so disconcerned by his new state that resulted from the manliness of killing that she was afraid of pointing out his ridiculousness to him. Macomber’s sheer stupidity is shown in his response to Margot’s challenging observations: “Macomber laughed, a very natural hearty laugh. ‘You know I have,’ he said. ‘I really have’” (34).
His laugh is described as “very natural” and “hearty” to emphasize that he is completely blind to the fact that he has bought into the idea of hypermasculinity; he stupidly doesn’t catch on to the intention of her comment and responds with genuine self-admiration represented by the italics on “have” and the repetition of “I have. ” In the end, Macomber is destroyed by his buying into of what it means to “be a man” according to outside pressures. The story reinforces how false Macomber’s newfound manliness is as he is ironically shot dead his own wife.
After Margot ends up killing Macomber, a satirical scene is depicted: “Francis Macomber lay now, face down, not two yards from where the buffalo lay on his side and his wife knelt over him with Wilson beside her” (36). Macomber’s perception of manhood is now spoiled by the fact that his wife is a better shot than him. The depiction of Macomber lying face down conveys defeat, and the fact that he ended up right next to the buffalo he was hunting reveals, in a twisted way, that Macomber’s definition of manhood was relative and falsely defined by sources from the outside.
The raw scene of Macomber dead on the ground mocks his earlier euphoria, only reaffirming his original ineptitude and stupidity in buying into Wilson’s external vision of manliness. While “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber” can be seen as a story of success—he finds happiness in fulfilling the idea of manliness and ultimately literally lives a “short happy life”—I view the story as more of a sarcastic tale revealing that what it means to be a man and to be happy with one’s masculinity is, more often than not, defined by outside pressures hat may not be true to one’s actual beliefs.
What it means to “be a man” should be defined individually for people internally, rather than by what others want to impose. Macomber became so consumed with his desire to fulfill Wilson’s idea of masculinity that he ultimately became victimized. He may have seemed elated on the surface, but his happiness was not true in the sense that it was coming from an outside definition that had no credibility in being able to actually define what a true “man” is.
