Hemingway The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber
Ernest Hemingway was one of a group of artists in the inter-war period of the early twentieth century who was left mentally (and for Hemingway also physically) scarred by the total devastation he witnessed during and after the Great War. Gertrude Stein labeled Hemingway and his peers "a Lost Generation", a famous phrase that only partially describes the detachment, confusion, instability, and distrust that these twenty- and thirty-somethings felt toward many of the traditional ways of life that had led to the brutal, total war which had eradicated much of the people of their age group. To cope with the feelings of meaninglessness and nothingness they had in their lives in the modern world, these artists developed personalized value systems which were reflected and transmitted through their work. Hemingway's personal value system has been termed "the code", and has to do mainly with struggle and growth toward awareness as a process taught via example by a tutor figure to a student figure, the tyro. The tutor figure is what critics call the code-hero, and his stoic tutelage is usually manifested in some manner of 'birth under fire' to the tyro, who is often only a shell of a human, a corrupted soul, and is virtually the 'liv
Of course, nada is not this easy to shake. As they celebrate, news arrives that the first bull, ironically the only one Macomber took single-handedly, has only been wounded and has escaped into the bush. Hemingway skillfully sets the stage for a test of Francis' growth. Margot, who has not grown, says, "Then it's going to be just like the lion." 28 Showing his newfound respect for Francis, Wilson snaps, "It's not going to be a damned bit like the lion." and turning to Francis asks, "Would you like another drink, Macomber?". 29 Precisely at this point, Francis feels the change in himself 30: It is important to note that as is the case with most of Hemingway's tutors, as a professional Wilson has a limited realm of understanding. As Rovit argues, a tutor character's "responses will be inevitably adequate to the challenge that he is trained to accept . . . The tyro must try to stop himself from thinking [in those same situations if he is to act as determinedly as the tutor]." 11 Thus Wilson can offer Francis plenty of sound advice on big game hunting (Wilson's area of expertise), but in other areas his advice is detached and dismissive: "Women upset amounts to nothing. Strain on the nerves and one thing'n another." 12 That is to say that Wilson's tutelage will only directly apply to hunting, and Francis will have to apply the lessons to the other areas of his life in order for the lessons to have a pronounced effect on the rest of his life. His wife had been through with him before but it never lasted. He was very wealthy, and he would be much wealthier, and he knew she would not leave him ever now. That was one of the few things that he really knew. He knew about that, about motor cycles -- that was the earliest -- about motor cars, about duck-shooting, about fishing, trout, salmon and big sea, about sex in books, many books, too many books, about all court games, about dogs, not much about horses, about hanging on to his money, about most of the other things his world dealt in, and about his wife not leaving him.
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Approximate Word count = 4366
Approximate Pages = 17 (250 words per page double spaced)
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