Paper 1

Psychoanalyzing "The Short Happy Life Of Francis Macomber"

Many people encounter a scenario where their path will be intermingled with someone that they may not know, thus causing a major paradigm shift in the lives of both individuals forever. Others can encounter a situation or a circumstance that will cause traumatization or a positive benefit that reassess their life. Ernest Hemingway's short story, The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber, the way a person valuate their life can change completely in one satisfying moment, if only for an instant.
Jon Tolkien said it best in a quote “A man that flies from his fear may find that he has only taken a short cut to meet it.” According to Lois Tyson, “we all experience some sort of psychological problems over the course of our lives”. Psychoanalytic theory aids people interpret problems we go through by the dysfunctional behavior they portray. Through the exploration of this reading it would be reckoned easy to apply various psychoanalytic theories to the same characters along with the development of the story. Francis is an affluent married man who suffers with the fear of abandonment. According to Louis Tyson, “fear of abandonment is defined as the nagging belief that our friends and loved ones are going to desert us (physical abandonment)." Francis is caught in a predicament with fear of his wife walking out on him thus convinces himself that she would not leave him because of his wealth. “He was very wealthy, and would be much wealthier.” (Hemingway). He accepts as the truth that he is less than what he is and she underestimates him just the same; a man supremacy lies within his soul, not his possessions. His fear of abandonment may have arise for several reasons; partly because when an individual is really attracted to someone, it arouses a fear of losing that person. This fear causes you to become clingy and needy.
One of the most important symptoms of this disorder is that the person will have a very low sense of self-worth and self-esteem. There is evidence that infidelity was going on “Macomber’s wife had not looked at him. While they sat there, his wife had reached forward and put her hand on Wilson’s shoulders. He turned and she had leaned forward over the low seat and kissed him on the mouth. (Hemingway). Also, the moment she sneaked into the tent in the waning hours of the morning and made up an excuse saying that she went out to get a breath of air. These are clues supporting the idea of Margot and Wilson having an affair she seems to be licentious. She takes vengeance of the poor guy’s cowardice by flirting with the hunting guide, Wilson. This reinforces reasons that led to Macomber’s fear of abandonment; he refused to question his wife about her affair with the other guy. Throughout the story he remained nonchalant about her “modus operandi.”

The irony about this story on abandonment issues is that we gravitate to people who will abandon us, in this case the main character was trying to get attention from his wife which evidently lost her edge in their marriage . And so fear of abandonment causes abandonment. Francis Maccomber also displays insecurity because he lets his wife take control of the relationship. According to Tyson, insecurity “makes us very vulnerable to influence—for good or ill—of other people”. He shows insecurity when he fled away from the lion instead of killing it. “The next thing he knew he was running: Francis’ faint-hearted approach switched to a dauntless one as this story unraveled. By this time, for Francis, the core issue “fear of abandonment” and
“Insecure or unstable sense of self” were synonymous with his character. According to Tyson “this core issue makes us very vulnerable to the influence for-good or ill-of other people, and we may have a tendency to repeatedly change the way we look or behave as we become involved with different individuals or groups”. Macomber made constant efforts to perfect himself when he is around his beau. He changed from his recreant demeanor into a tough hunter. Moreover, Francis was “vulnerable to the influence for good of the other people” (Tyson) and that influential individual was Wilson. The quote in support of Francis’ change was “you know I don’t think I’d ever be afraid of anything again” (Tyson).By gathering all of the evidence in the story, and from an objective analysis of the narration and dialogue, it is reasonable to make the conclusion that she killed her husband intentionally.