The short happy life of Francis Macomber.
The main characters of this short story are Robert Wilson a hunter from England and the wealthy married couple from America, Francis and Margot Macomber. It takes place in Kenya in the 1920 or 30'th.
It is told by an omniscient narrator, so that we see scenes from different point of views and therefor get to know the characters by hearing their inner thoughts.
About Francis and Margot Macomber it is told very directly from the beginning of the story, that their marriage is based on nothing but materialism and that they are both aware of this, I would call it tragic, fact. She wants his money and he wants her beauty. And surprisingly this empty, superficial, and insensitive marriage has lasted for maybe twenty years, even though there have been couple of times where they were on the verge to split up. In line 35 page 213 the narrator expresses it this way: "They had a sound basis of union. Margot was too beautiful for Macomber to divorce her and Macomber had too much money for Margot ever to leave him."" So you could say that they are mutually dependant on each other and that they both get something they need, so for them it is a kind of practical marriage. But at the same time they are obviously not satisfied with each other and they are not able to play the role the other person want. In the case of Margot, she is not at all satisfied with having a husband who, in her eyes, is a coward. He is not living up to the ideals and pictures she has about how you are a real man, and unfortunately Wilson lives to these standards, she thinks. And she has a very cynical way to show what she thinks of her husband's way of behaving. For example when she on page 206 discovers that Macomber is ready to wet his pants because he can hear the lion roar somewhere in the jungle. Margot can not tolerate that her husband is acting like this, and her way of showing this is by humiliating him as a kind of punishment.
