The short happy life of Francis Macomber

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The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber is a short story by Ernest Hemingway , who in September 1936 under the English title The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber in The Cosmopolitan appeared and in the collection in 1938 The Fifth Column and the First Forty-Nine Stories was recorded .

action

Robert Wilson hosts big game hunts for English-speaking Sunday hunters in Kenya, East Africa . In addition to the appropriate hunting weapons, a double-wide camp bed and an all-terrain vehicle serve as props. Wilson and customers use the latter to conveniently find game, although Nairobi has banned motorized stalking . The rich trigger-happy customers are sometimes accompanied by ladies. Sometimes they are looking for a nightly interlude with Wilson in a double bed.

Francis Macomber does not hunt down a lion very skillfully. Wilson is supposed to finish the battered animal. Then the monster attacks. The "hunter" runs away. Wilson does the job routinely. Margot Macomber witnesses the escape. She despises her cowardly husband and demonstratively gives Wilson a thank you kiss on the mouth in the presence of Macomber on the way back.

To make matters worse, she goes to Wilson's double bed the following night. Macomber catches his wife returning and angrily confronts her. Margot reacts unreasonably. Her adultery is all right, she "reassures" the horned. The next morning, when the buffalo hunt is due, Macomber's anger at Margot and Wilson lingers. The automobile is used again. Margot goes with us, of course. Macomber - furious, hardened by the "lion hunt" - surprisingly no longer knows fear. Now his happy life begins. It doesn't even take half a day. Macomber bravely shoots buffalo. One remains lying in the bushes. When Wilson wants to look, Macomber follows him courageously and does not let himself be turned away. Margot stays in the car with the rest of the hunting weapons. When the wounded buffalo attacks, Wilson jumps sideways into a favorable shooting position and kills the animal. Almost simultaneously, Macomber fired head-on and manly - but rather ineffectual - shots at the buffalo. Standing about two meters in front of the hunted colossus, Macomber is shot by his wife from the car.

interpretation

The short story is one of Hemingway's best-known works today. Typical features are the clear, life-affirming and death-not afraid attitude of the protagonist , which he only gradually gains. Macomber is going through a change from being a clumsy and weak man to being a self-determined and courageous individual. One possible interpretation is that his wife shoots him on purpose, knowing that he is now leading a more independent life. So Macomber is forcibly killed at the height of his life. The period between morning and his death is Macomber's “real life”, insofar as the only happy part is because he acts self-determined and fearlessly. This attitude clearly reflects Hemingway's view of life. Only those who approach the dangers freely and without fear can defeat them. Last but not least, this worldview of "classic masculinity" has secured him a large fan base to this day.

Narrative technique

Hemingway's typical writing style, the so-called “ Iceberg Theory ”, becomes particularly clear in this story . Hemingway assumes that only a small part of an iceberg is above the water - so you can see it, but you have to think about the rest. It should be the same with stories. The author provides the most important information, but the most important thing is hidden between the lines. As an omniscient ( authorial ) narrator, the feelings of the protagonists are reproduced, but the real drama does not take place in the hunt, but in the interpersonal relationships. The exciting plot only reflects, so to speak, the much more explosive, inner emotional world. Francis Macomber's external struggle is the hunt, the internal struggle treats his identity finding as a brave individual.

Impact history

The literary-critical discussion of the narrative dealt intensively with the open situation at the end, which was interpreted differently. Some of the critics, including the renowned Hemingway interpreter Phillip Young, take the view that Margaret Macomber is only supposedly aiming at the buffalo to save her husband, but in reality killing him with full intent. The reason given for this interpretation is that she could not endure the heroic change in her husband's being and that she could not allow the unexpected final humiliation, since her husband's self-liberation meant her spiritual downfall. It can no longer play its previous superior role; She could only take advantage of her husband's previous weakness; therefore she made the decision to kill him with an aimed shot.

Another section of the critics, on the other hand, see the fatal shot as a tragic accident. Due to her tense psychological situation and as an inexperienced shooter, she is not at all capable of killing her husband in such a targeted manner at such a dramatic moment.

The character of Francis Macomber was classified in literary commentaries as a further exponent of Hemingway's code hero , who finally succeeded in shaking off his fear and thus feeling the meaning and purpose of his life in the experience of death. For Young, Macomber is not the prototype of the Hemingway hero; but he admires the Codex and tries to conform to it. Ultimately, he achieved this goal, but had to pay for it with his life.

In this respect, Macomber's stance shows similarities with Manuel's from The Undefeated (1927), despite the fact that the situation is completely different . There, however, this code of the Hemingway hero has existed from the beginning as a tried and tested insight that one can only behave in one way and no other. The prerequisite for this is inner freedom, which also explains the lack of the "Tristan motif" of love in almost all of Hemingway's short stories. Macomber must first acquire this attitude; this requires the impetus from his own failure out of fear that he cannot get over. When he succeeds in overcoming this fear, he does not yet achieve the state of cool self-evident in dealing with the reality of death as Manuel Garcia or the wisdom of the old fisherman Santiago in The Old Man and the Sea (1952) does for a moment the euphoria that preceded this attitude.

In addition, the socio-critical implications of this Hemingway story have been addressed in numerous individual studies. Above all, the references to “beauty” and “money” were understood as a critical reflection of an unfortunate American zeitgeist that triggered Hemingway's cultural pessimism and his withdrawal “into the natural order of the world”. The red-faced Wilson was understood in this line of interpretation as a representative of the “imperialist tyranny of England”.

Secondary literature

  • Detlef Gohrbandt: The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber . In: Detlef Gohrbandt: Ernest Hemingway - The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber and Other Stories · Model Interpretations , Klett Verlag, Stuttgart 1985, ISBN 3-12-577390-3 , pp. 138-164.
  • Reiner Poppe: The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber . In: Reiner Poppe: Ernest Hemingway · From the short story · Investigations and comments . Beyer Verlag Hollfeld / Ofr. 1978, ISBN 3-921202-40-X , pp. 52-62.

literature

expenditure
  • Ernest Hemingway: The Undefeated. The short happy life of Francis Macomber. R. Piper, Munich 1954. Piper-Bücherei No. 52, 80 pages
  • Ernest Hemingway: The Brief Happy Life of Francis Macomber. Stories . Rowohlt 1996. 124 pages, ISBN 3-499-22020-2

In English:

  • Ernest Hemingway: Selected short stories of Ernest Hemingway. Armed Services Edition, New York 1945. Containing 12 of his best known stories, starting with The Short, Happy Life of Francis Macomber .

Radio plays

Ernest Hemingway: The Brief Happy Life of Francis Macomber . Playing time: 75 minutes. Speaker:

An NWDR production from 1951.

Released as an audio CD by Airlift Verlag in August 2002, ISBN 978-3-89849-647-6

In the same year another radio play was produced, which Südwestfunk produced in cooperation with Radio Bremen . Gert Westphal directed the film . The playing time is 59 minutes and is therefore significantly shorter than the NWDR version. The main speakers were:

The audio document has been preserved.

filming

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See Carlos Baker: Hemingway - The Writer as Artist , Princeton University Press 4th ed. 1973, ISBN 0-691-01305-5 , pp. 412 and 414.
  2. ↑ Phillip Young: Ernest Hemingway . Translated by Hans Dietrich Berendt, Diedrichs Verlag, Düsseldorf u. a. 1954, without ISBN, p. 49 f. Similar is the interpretation by Carlos Baker: Hemingway - The Writer as Artist , Princeton University Press 4th ed. 1973, ISBN 0-691-01305-5 , p. 186 ff.
  3. ↑ See also Reiner Poppe: The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber , p. 59.
  4. ↑ See Reiner Poppe: The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber , p. 59 f.
  5. ↑ See Phillip Young: Ernest Hemingway . Translated by Hans Dietrich Berendt, Diedrichs Verlag, Düsseldorf u. a. 1954, without ISBN, p. 50.
  6. ↑ See Reiner Poppe: The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber , p. 61.
  7. ↑ See the information and evidence in Reiner Poppe: The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber , p. 61.