The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber

"The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" is a short story by Ernest Hemingway. Set in Africa, it was published in the September 1936 issue of Cosmopolitan magazine concurrently with "The Snows of Kilimanjaro". The story was eventually adapted to the screen as the Zoltan Korda film The Macomber Affair (1947). Synopsis "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" is a third-person omniscient narrative with moments of unreliable interior monologue presented mainly through the points of view of the two leading male characters, Francis Macomber and Robert Wilson. Francis Macomber and his wife Margot are on a big-game safari In Africa. We learn from the white, professional hunter and guide, Robert Wilson, that the "gun-bearers" and "personal boys" speak Yorùbá and sometimes receive illegal lashings. Earlier, Francis had panicked when a wounded lion charged him, and Margot mocks Macomber for his cowardice. Wilson is critical of Macomber, presented in interior monologue, but outwardly tries to shepherd Macomber toward a more accepted "code" practiced by experienced hunters. This is Francis' thirty-five-year-old "coming of age" story. In flash-back, we experience Francis' cowardly run from his wounded and charging lion, dispatched by a scornful Wilson. We also learn of Margot's adultery with Wilson on the night after. Though Macomber hates Wilson he seems to "need" him. As Wilson puts it, this is Francis' chance to come of age, to become a man.