The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber Men and Masculinity Quotes Page 1
| Quote #1 "He is a good lion, isn't he?" Macomber said. His wife looked at him now. She looked at both these men as though she had never seen them before. (1.14) |
Margot is not impressed by their hunting dialogue. She's shocked that they can pretend that Macomber's cowardice was anything but a big fat failure.
| Quote #2 One, Wilson, the white hunter, she knew she had never truly seen before. He was about middle height with sandy hair, a stubby mustache, a very red face and extremely cold blue eyes with faint white wrinkles at the corners that grooved merrily when he smiled. (1.14) |
Wilson is seriously weathered and wears his masculinity like a mask. Margot looks at him like he is a stranger – not necessarily because he is, but because his behavior is so alien to her. She seems more used to the smoother, more boyish American types.
| Quote #3 Francis Macomber was very tall, very well built if you did not mind that length of bone, dark, his hair cropped like an oarsman, rather thin-lipped, and was considered handsome. He was dressed in the same sort of safari clothes that Wilson wore except that his were new, he was thirty-five years old, kept himself very fit, was good at court games, had a number of big-game fishing records […] (1.17). |
Hemingway gives us a glimpse of what others think of Macomber. The man is good-looking and sporty, but his new clothes give him away. They're too crisp and clean. Instead of looking like a seasoned hunter, he ends up looking like a model from a Ralph Lauren commercial – everything just so.
