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- NOT FOR FALL '22 questions on "The Short, Happy Life of Frances Macomber"
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6) A short story by Ernest Hemingway, called “The Short, Happy Life of Francis Macomber”
(there is an audiobook version, read to you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cW7X5B-tCc)
Q a) Notice that the story is out of sequence. Rather than go in chronological order, it starts in the middle, goes back to the beginning, and then ends at the end.Q b) Why do you think Hemingway chose to do this?
Q c) Who are the three main characters? (Note: Francis is a male name. Frances is a female name.)
Q d) Whom do you think the author wants us to like or dislike?
d) Notice how many things are said about Margot / Margaret: she is openly cheating on her husband and has no remorse. He writes,
“She was an extremely handsome and well-kept woman of the beauty and social position which had, five years before, commanded five thousand dollars as the price of endorsing, with photographs, a beauty product which she had never used. She had been married to Francis Macomber for eleven years.”We would consider her a “trophy wife,” which wealthy men often have. Think of all the music performers and athletes with model wives.
However, when we see an ad does it make a difference to us if we know (or care) if the model actually uses the product?Q e) Then, what does it say about her integrity to mention she got paid to endorse something she did not use?
f) This couple does not seem to love one another, yet they stay together.
Q f) What is the attraction, what “power” does each have over the other?
g) At the end, Margot deliberately shoots Francis dead.
Q g) Why does she shoot him then, rather than any other time?
Q h) What was happening to make his life short and happy? If you look carefully, there are two scenes in which we get the POV of the lion.
This is a remarkable point of view example: we see up close how the lion is breathing and thinking. It uses limited vocabulary – because it is a lion.
Here is one of the scenes: “The lion still stood looking majestically and coolly toward this object [the lion is seeing the Jeep and doesn’t know the word for it] that his eyes only showed in silhouette, bulking like some super rhino. There was no man smell carried toward his and he watched the object, moving his great head a little from side to side. Then watching the object, not afraid, but hesitating before going down the bank to drink with such a thing opposite him, he saw a man figure detach itself from it and he turned his heavy head and swung away toward the cover for the trees.”
i) It seems Ernest Hemingway has more respect for the lion than the woman.
Q i) In a movie, the camera would show you what the lion is seeing and maybe the sound of his breathing would be heightened. Did you sense something unusual in the two lion’s POV (point of view) scenes, in their wording or did you not notice it?
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