In Ernest Hemingway’s short story “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber,” the title character, on African safari, is revealed a coward when he runs away in the face of the charging lion he had wounded earlier in the hunt. Due to Macomber’s cowardice the lion is killed by his white hunter guide, who furthes Macomber’s humiliation by bedding his wife that night in the special two-person cot he brings on safari for just this purpose.
The following day, however, Macomber is redeemed when he kills a charging Cape buffalo (considered the most dangerous of all African big game), only to be killed in the next instant by an errant shot from his wife.
Did Macomber’s wife kill him on purpose? The question has fueled endless debate among Hemingway scholars in the decades since the story was first published in “Cosmopolitan” magazine in 1936. “Short Happy Life” soon became Exhibit A for critics who deride Hemingway’s work as misogynistic, hyper-masculine to the point of caricature, and nostalgic for an imaginary world where men could still be men.
I’m a Hemingway fan, but I’m not oblivious to his blind spots.
The story also represents a different era, a time when society generally viewed safari and big game hunting as some sort of noble test of bravery and adventure. But can you imagine today’s “Cosmo” editors bumping one of their lurid how-to pieces — “Tips to Make Your Man Beg for More” — to clear space for a short story on big game hunting?
No, I didn’t think so.
African big game hunting is increasingly seen as a rich man’s diversion, a narcissistic game of self fulfillment for those wealthy enough to afford international hunting trips so they can check species off their personal trophy list, even as some of those species are pushed toward extinction in the wild.
This is the world in which Minnesota dentist Walter Palmer last month killed Cecil, a 13-year-old lion who lived in a national park in Zimbabwe. Cecil was something of a worldwide celebrity due to his striking looks and apparent ease around tourists who flock to the park to view, but not kill, wildlife.
The details of the hunt are a perfect storm of disgraceful, unethical tactics that no fair-chase hunter would ever allow. Cecil was apparently lured from the sanctuary of the park by a truck dragging a dead animal. Palmer shot Cecil at night with a bow, but it wasn’t a kill shot as the lion was still alive 40 hours later when it was dispatched by rifle. Then Palmer and his guides tried to destroy the radio collar they removed from the lion’s neck after beheading and skinning out the carcass. Cecil’s remains were ultimately left to rot in the African sun.
This type of vanity hunt is tolerated largely because a portion of the exorbitant fees paid by these modern-day Macombers — Palmer forked out about $55,000 for his lion “hunt” — stays on the ground, funding conservation and anti-poaching efforts in poverty and war-torn Africa. Poaching, remember, not trophy hunting, is the real threat to African wildlife. But Palmer and his guide’s callousness has painted a bull’s eye on the backs of legitimate, fair-chase hunters worldwide, and the world’s patience grows thin.
The fictional Francis Macomber faced down his greatest fear in the African bush, only to be doomed by the danger that lurked behind: a scheming wife. The very real Walter Palmer may have also thought he was facing down some imagined danger when he shot a baited lion, one habituated to humans, in the African night. What Palmer didn’t understand, however, was that maybe his greatest fear was overtaking him from behind: the evolving, maturing perspective that humanity no longer tolerates the sorting out of one man’s existential crisis by killing.
Killing, in this case, solely for the thrill of killing.