Hemingway’s “Heroic Code”

INTRO – Explain Hemingway’s “Heroic Code” and why maintaining “Grace Under Pressure” was so important to the author.

BODY I – Provide three specific examples of Hemingway’s “Heroic Code” in action

a)Robert Wilson

b)The Lion

c) Francis Macomber

BODY II – Provide a specific example that defines the discrimination these secondary characters are made to endure in this 100-year-old story.

a)Margot Macomber

b)Kongoni – the lead gun bearer

BODY III – Explain the notion of “marriage as mortal combat” as witnessed in the behavior of Francis and Margot Macomber

CONCLUSION – Explain the epiphany Francis Macomber experiences in the final scene with the water buffalo.

Was his death an accident or murder?

Rough Draft

INTRO – Explain Hemingway’s “Heroic Code” and why maintaining “Grace Under Pressure” was so important to the author.

Robert Wilson is in many ways is like Hemingway himself. Wilson lifts his spirits by creating his own personal utopia on safari in Africa. He remains an unchanging example of Hemingway’s ideal of heroism. Like Wilson, Hemingway found nature to be the best escape for him from his troubled world. As such, the Hemingway Hero is always courageous, confident, and introspective. Robert Wilson does not discuss the code out loud, but does attempt to explain to Macomber the essence of the code after the industrialist’s epiphany with the water buffalo:

“You know, I’d like to try another lion,” Macomber said. “I’m really not afraid of them now. After all, what can they do to you?”

“That’s it,” said Wilson. “Worst one can do is kill you. How does it go? Shakespeare. Damned good. See if I can remember. Oh, damned good. Used to quote it to myself at one time! Let’s see. ‘By my troth, I care not; a man can die but once; we owe God a death and let it go which way it will he that dies this year is quit for the next.’ Damned fine, eh?”

He was very embarrassed, having brought out this thing he had lived by, but he had seen men come of age before and it always moved him. It was not a matter of their twenty-first birthday.

Wilson is as proud of Macomber’s transformation into “a bloody fire eater” as Margot is frightened by her husband’s sudden metamorphosis. Macomber clearly demonstrates “grace under pressure” with the buffalo and now seems destined to do so in every other aspect of his life including confronting his wife’s adulterous ways.

BODY I – Provide three specific examples of Hemingway’s “Heroic Code” in action

a) Robert Wilson

At the story’s outset, Hemingway provides Wilson with an undeniable example of bravery and grace under pressure when he stands his ground in the face of the wounded lion’s relentless attack.

“. . . [Macomber] heard the ca-ra-wong of Wilson’s big rifle, and again in a second crashing ca-ra-wong and turning saw the lion, horrible-looking now with half his head seeming to be gone, crawling toward Wilson in the edge of the tall grass while the red-faced man worked the bolt on the short ugly rifle and aimed carefully as another blasting ca-ra-wong came from the muzzle, and the crawling, heavy, yellow bulk of the lion stiffened and the huge, mutilated head slid forward . . . .

b) The Lion

For Hemingway, no mere mortal can summon the courage of the alpha beast. The Lion is the epitome of courage as is evidenced in the writer’s description of the Lion’s final charge:

“. . . his flanks were wet and hot and flies were on the little openings the solid bullets had made in his tawny hide, and his big yellow eyes, narrowed with hate, looked straight ahead, only blinking when the pain came as he breathed, and his claws dug in the soft baked earth. All of him, pain, sickness, hatred and all of his remaining strength, was tightening into an absolute concentration for a rush.”

C) Francis Macomber

Francis’s epiphany is short, and his happiness even briefer, but the title character’s 40+ pages of futility is paid off in the brilliant final scene where he confronts not only the dangerous water buffalo, but his own fears as well:

“Macomber, as he fired, unhearing his shot in the roaring of Wilson’s gun, saw fragments like slate burst from the huge boss of the horns, and the head jerked, he shot again at the wide nostrils and saw the horns jolt again and fragments fly, and he did not see Wilson now and, aiming carefully, shot again with the buffalo’s huge bulk almost on him and his rifle almost level with the on-coming head, nose out, and he could see the little wicked eyes and the head started to lower and . . . .”

BODY II – Provide a specific example that defines the discrimination these secondary characters are made to endure in this 100-year-old story.

a) Margot Macomber

Margot is a cast as a classic “trophy wife” prized for her beauty, but berated for speaking her mind. Wilson applies the “double standard” of the times (1920s) when summarizing his feelings toward the wife of his client:

“They are, he thought, the hardest in the world; the hardest, the crudest, the most predatory and the most attractive and their men have softened or gone to pieces nervously as they have hardened. Or is it that they pick men they can handle? They can’t know that much at the age they marry, he thought. He was grateful that he had gone through his education on American women before now because this was a very attractive one.”

b) The native boys hired to assist the hunt

These young men have no agency. They are underpaid and overworked because that is the colonial way:

Wilson could tell that the boys all knew about it now and when he saw Macomber’s personal boy looking curiously at his master while he was putting dishes on the table he snapped at him in Swahili. The boy turned away with his face blank. “What were you telling him?” Macomber asked. “Nothing. Told him to look alive or I’d see he got about fifteen of the best.” “What’s that? Lashes?” “It’s quite illegal,” Wilson said. “You’re supposed to fine them.” “Do you still have them whipped?” “Oh, yes. They could raise a row if they chose to complain. But they don’t. They prefer it to the fines.” “How strange!” said Macomber. “Not strange, really,” Wilson said. “Which would you rather do? Take a good birching or lose your pay?”

BODY III – Explain the notion of “marriage as mortal combat” as witnessed in the behavior of Francis and Margot Macomber

F. Scott Fitzgerald famously surmised that the, “the rich are different from me and you.” Francis and Margot Macomber are exemplars of the type of wealth that pays for everything but rarely brings about marital bliss. The Macomber’s is as faithless, cynical and dysfunctional as a marriage gets, but the social mores of the time provide all the cover either require to keep up appearances:

“His wife had been through with him before but it never lasted. He was very wealthy, and would be much wealthier, and he knew she would not leave him ever now. That was one of the few things that he really knew . . . His wife had been a great beauty and she was still a great beauty in Africa, but she was not a great enough beauty any more at home to be able to leave him and better herself and she knew it and he knew it. She had missed the chance to leave him and he knew it . . . All in all they were known as a comparatively happily married couple, one of those whose disruption is often rumored but never occurs . . . they always made it up. 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.

CONCLUSION – Explain the epiphany Francis Macomber experiences in the final scene with the water buffalo. Was his death an accident or murder?

He called to the driver and told him to spread a blanket over the body and stay by it. Then he Robert Wilson is sure that he has just witnessed a murder. That said, his sense of duty as a safari guide to the rich and famous supersedes his misogynistic disdain for Margot:

He called to the driver and told him to spread a blanket over the body and stay by it. Then he “He walked over to the motor car where the woman sat crying in the corner. “That was a pretty thing to do,” he said in a toneless voice. “He would have left you too.” “Stop it,” she said. “Of course it’s an accident,” he said. “I know that.” “Stop it,” she said.”