Introduction
Ernest Hemingway emerged as one of America’s more colorful writers in the early to mid-1900s, presenting himself as the ultimate man’s man, worldly traveler, mighty hunter and hard-drinking spinner of tales. Within a short span of time, 1925-1929, he had established himself as having produced some of the most important literary fiction in his century. His short stories focused on the virtues held by men a generation or two earlier than him as well as the effects and aftereffects of war.
Yet each story contained a deeper message within the lines, if the reader felt the desire to go searching for it. He believed in omitting extra details as a way of strengthening his stories. He compared this to an iceberg. Just like only the top 1/8th of an iceberg can be seen above the water with the rest remaining below the surface providing it with its momentum and dignity, Hemingway believed his stories should follow the same structure.
Although some critics loved him, others said his stories were shallow. “He had no sympathy for women, they said, portraying them either as manhood-destroying bitches or as mere objects of sexual domination” (Lynn 10). A close reading of his stories reveals not only the messages the author intended to send, but also some insights as to the way he felt about things. Understanding how Hemingway struggled in his relationships with others, particularly women which can be traced through many of his works including “The Short and Happy Life of Francis Macomber,” opens consideration of what he truly intended in building the character of Margot.
Main body
In “The Short and Happy Life of Francis Macomber”, Hemingway reveals his latent fear of strong women and being dominated as he depicts the story of a middle-aged man who is finally beginning to understand his true worth and his wife, a woman who has nothing but contempt for her weak and cowardly husband. Written during his real-life marriage to Pauline, the author’s marriage was beginning to show signs of wear.
According to Allen (2000), this marriage was only approximately two years from breaking up, the final straw occurring when Hemingway took a female reporter from Key West with him to a correspondent’s job in the Spanish Civil War. As the story progresses, it becomes clear that during this, the couple’s first safari, Francis fled from the sight of his first lion. There is an interesting parallel in Hemingway’s life in that he and Pauline went on their first safari in 1933 (Allen 3).
The couple’s relationship is also characterized in a strongly similar fashion to Hemingway’s relationship with Pauline, “They had a sound basis of union. Margot was too beautiful for Macomber to divorce her and Macomber had too much money for Margot ever to leave him” (Hemingway 22). This is a significant clue as to the realism of Margot’s character – she is symbiotically connected to Francis, giving her an androgynous and duplicitous nature.
Margot Macomber is characterized throughout the story as a cruel, vindictive woman who will simply not allow her husband to forget his weaknesses and yet fears his increasing confidence. “Bell notes that the narrator describes Margot as ‘hard,’ ‘cruel’ and ‘predatory’” (Kravitz 83). She cannot stand the shame of her husband’s cowardice in facing the lion nor can she tolerate the thought of him growing beyond her as he begins to face his fears. As he stands down the charge of his second water buffalo, taking careful aim at the buffalo’s head, Francis “felt a sudden white-hot, blinding flash explode inside his head and that was all he ever felt” (Hemingway 36).
Wilson’s reaction seals the suspicions on the reader’s part that Margot intentionally shot her husband and suggests the reason she did. However, familiar with the wild beast within her, he forces her to plead with him for his assistance following the ‘accident’. “Despite or because of the animal imagery, Bell brands Margot a murderer, and she is, in turn, destroyed by Wilson who ‘kills’ her by ‘killing her spirit’ and making her beg for his help in avoiding a scandal” (Kravitz 83).
However much Hemingway himself might have envisioned his character as an evil American woman, there remains a great deal of realism to her character, including hints that she is trapped within a specific role of her own. Viewed from an evolutionary anthropological point of view, Margot’s reaction to her husband’s inability to face the lion is the reaction to sudden revelation that he is not the superb provider she married him to be. “It is perfectly logical that Margot is upset and embarrassed by her husband’s failure … Margot’s displeasure and shame are likely an evolved affective response to the problem of gross incompetence on the part of one’s mate” (Sugiyama 20).
From this perspective, Margot’s later decision to have sex with Wilson is intended as both a motivating action to get Francis out hunting again, thus proving his manhood and ability to provide for his family, as well as a means of securing for her children the better genes. “In becoming sexually involved with Wilson, Margot is not choosing one man over another; she is choosing both” (Sugiyama 21).
In comparing the story to the Biblical tale of Genesis, Kozikowski et al suggests Margot’s ‘masculine’ attributes and behaviors are required in order to push Francis to his full development as a man. “Margot’s leaving the sleeping Francis harkens back to Adam’s sleep in Genesis, from which Eve’s and Adam’s complete sexual identities emerged” (Kozikowski et al 240). In leaving her husband to sleep with Wilson, the authors suggest that Margot becomes finally fully female in the prehistoric sense forcing Frances, in order to keep her, to become finally fully male.
Margot’s relative innocence within the story is finally further supported by Kravitz who points out the symbiotic nature of the Macomber marriage and illustrates how Francis’ behaviors have forced Margot’s responses. “The symbiosis takes place between family members, in this case husband and wife, and each has the role of filling the void of ‘ego incompleteness’ of the other” (Kravitz 84).
When Francis demonstrates his extreme feminine cowardice, Margot is forced to acknowledge her strong masculine drive. When Frances is discovering his own masculine drive, Margot must relinquish her claims to masculine behavior, even though it is Wilson, rather than Frances, who ultimately forces her to do so.
Conclusion
By tracing through Hemingway’s life in conjunction with his stories such as “The Short and Happy Life of Francis Macomber,” one can begin to trace the cyclical pattern that characterized Hemingway’s life and thinking regarding women. While most of Hemingway’s work can be seen to contain a great deal of biography within them, it is important not to miss the applicability of these stories to the universal human experience in the Western world of the early 1900s.
Issues of relationships based on convenience rather than love and a changing society in which men were expected to be more feminine and women were becoming more masculine threaten each of the characters in Hemingway’s stories just as they were increasing concerns in the greater social realm. Placed in slightly different terms, relationships based upon mutual benefit rather than sentiment and continuously changing social and gender roles around the world continue to be significant issues in today’s world as the deeper psychology underlying the author’s intentions and ideas is revealed.
Works Cited
Allen, Jamie. “Hemingway Biography: From Illinois to International Celebrity.” CNN Specials. 1999.
Hemingway, Ernest. “The Short and Happy Life of Francis Macomber.” The Short Stories. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1986: 3-37.
Kozikowski, S.; S. Adriaansen; D. Moruzzi & C. Prokop. “Hemingway’s ‘The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber’.” Name of Publication. Vol. #, N. #, (date published): 239-241.
Kravitz, Bennett. “’She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not’: The Short Happy Symbiotic Marriage of Margot and Francis Macomber.” Journal of American Culture. Vol. 21, N. 3, (1998): 83-87.
Lynn, Kenneth S. Hemingway. New York: Fawcett Columbine, 1987.
Sugiyama, Michelle Scalise. “What’s Love Got to do With It?: An Evolutionary Analysis of ‘The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber’.” Hemingway Review. Vol. 15, N. 2, (1996): 15-32.