"The Short, Happy Life of Francis Macomber"

"The Short, Happy Life of Francis Macomber"
By: Ernest Hemingway

This story was interesting to me. As I was reading I really thought that Mr. Macomber would be eaten by a lion or some other kind of animal, but I was very surprised in the end. Mr. and Mrs. Macomber was on a safari trip because Francis liked to hunt. I think that he only hunted because he was always afraid and wanted to look like a "real" man to everybody by all the animals he killed. His wife knew better.

While on their hunting trip Mr. Macomber shoots a lion and doesn't kill it. Him and Robert had to wait before going into the high grass to get the lion. As they go in to the grass the lion starts to charge them and Mr. Macomber starts running away and screaming. His wife sees this and also sees how Robert reacted and finished the lion off. This attracted Margaret. Later that night she leaves her husband and goes to stay with Robert. Mr Macomber wakes up and sees his wife returning to their tent. He told her he was going to leave and she said that he wasn't going to leave her because basically he was to scared, and she was never going to leave him because of the money.

When they went out looking for buffalo that morning Mr. Macomber realized he wasn't scared, he was to angry to be scared. He shoots three buffalo without hesitation. I think this is when his wife realizes that he was telling her the truth about leaving. She had made him mad enough to not worry about his fear. At this point Mr. Macomber was finally happy, but this was very short lived which is why the title of this story is appropriate. The first buffalo that he shot wasn't completely dead and began to run at them. All of the men began shooting even his wife from the car. She ends up shooting him in the back of the head. Was she aiming for the animal or for the man that was going to leave her? I think that she thought this was the only chance she was going to get and took it.