Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber” & “A Very Short Story” Dakota Stonesifer

“The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber” Francis Macomber, already holding numerous fishing records wanted to go on a hunting safari in Africa. He and his wife travelled to Africa, and stayed with a professional guide, Robert Wilson. When hunting a lion, Macomber shot too far back, shooting it in the guts, wounding it. The guide, Wilson and he went in to kill the lion, when it charged and Macomber ran like a girl. His wife was very displeased with her cowardly husband, so she slept with Wilson, the guide, who was quite the womanizer himself. Macomber learned of this, so when they went hunting for cape buffalo, he took his aggression out and killed three large bulls. One got up and charged Macomber, who didn’t run this time, instead he stood his ground and shot at the bull, but it didn’t stop. Seeing his courage, Margaret shot at the bull, but by mistake shot her husband in the head.

Tone • Hemingway illustrates a very pessimistic tone in his story, “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber.” It is pessimistic because Hemingway uses death as a theme through metaphors and symbols. Death is something that is inevitable, and for some, shortcoming. Death is not the biggest fear we have, our biggest fear is taking the risk of being alive. Thus, by discussing every element of death, the tone can be best described as pessimistic. • How could one even argue the fact that it’s not pessimistic when the story is seemingly getting to a happy point, when the story takes a completely different route, “Mrs. Macomber had shot at the buffalo… …and hit her husband about two inches up and a little to one side of the base of his skull.”

Imagery • Hemingway is well known for including excellent details about everything he can, which I particularly noticed at points where death was introduced. • With the lion: “… turning saw the lion, with half his head seeming to be gone… ….and the crawling, heavy, yellow bulk of the lion stiffened and the huge, mutilated head slid forward…” • With the cape buffalo: “…hitting the heavy horns, splintering and chipping them like hitting a slate roof…”

Voice • In “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber,” Hemingway uses language that reveals the extreme displeasure of being judged a coward by those you love. Francis Macomber has to deal with the fear of death through his experiences on an African safari with the white hunter, Robert Wilson. However, Margaret, Macomber’s sneering but beautiful wife, makes fun of poor Macomber for earlier acts of cowardice with a lion. It’s almost as if Hemingway is telling a story of his own life by the way he writes this so eloquently.

Irony • In Hemingway’s “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber”, Francis Macomber deals with the humiliation of being a coward and the constant battle for a little boy to come of age. Hemingway explores the theme of death through metaphors and influential symbols, ironically portraying the struggle to live with fear and the hunt for a happy life. Also, Ironically the lion symbolizes the epitome of masculinity and power, while Francis merely resembles the cowardice of mankind.

Two of Hemingway’s successful African safaris: a lion (left), and a leopard (right)

“A Very Short Story” • In Padua, a wounded soldier ends up in a hospital, and falls in love with his nurse, Luz. Upon getting better, the soldier needed to return to the states to finish college, but the two promised they’d get married in a few years. Within a year, Luz sent a letter to the states to tell him that she met somebody else and that she hoped that he could understand, because she was planning on getting married. She never did get married, and her groom-to-be ended up contracting gonorrhea from a sales girl.

Tone • Hemingway illustrates a very pessimistic tone in this story as well, because it seems as though everything that can go wrong does: the soldier is presumably injured from battle, the lovers have to leave each other, the girl screws the man over, and then finally the man ends up screwing her over. To top it all off, the poor soldier got gonorrhea from sleeping around.

Imagery • Hemingway included excellent details about the regions the story took place, which aided in the images in the reader’s mind: • Luz’s home: “Living in the muddy, rainy town in the winter…” • The hospital: “It was dim and quiet, and there were other people praying.”

Voice • In “A Very Short Story,” Hemingway writes such a concise account of his own, war time romance. He uses carefully chosen language to help the reader to feel the fleeting, yet powerful, nature of such encounters where lust is often mistaken for love. “A Very Short Story” is loaded with language that reveals the passion and sexual nature of this affair. The story begins on “One hot evening in Padua” where “hot” refers literally to the temperature and figuratively to the passionate feelings spawned on this evening.

Irony • In Hemingway’s “A Very Short Story,” it is very ironic that in the end the poor injured soldier contracts gonorrhea, when he already got his heart broken previously. If anything, the trampy nurse should have contracted HIV from someone to get back at her for ruining the unfortunate soldier’s life. This ties in specifically with the tone of pessimism in this work.

Hemingway at the hospital after getting badly injured during World War I.

Ernest Hemingway