Francis Macomber's Manhood In Ernest Hemingway

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In Hemingway’s eyes courage is what determines one's manhood. Without courage, every other trait is irrelevant. Francis Macomber is “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” though his life falls apart when he “had just shown himself, very publicly, to be a coward” (Hemingway 122). Macomber’s wife, Margaret, has gotten tired of Macomber’s cowardice habits, for he is no true man. For this reason, she is drawn to Wilson, a hunter, who is far more courageous than her husband of eleven years. This lack of manliness in Macomber is exactly why Margaret cheats on him with Wilson and eventually shoots her husband in the head. If he had

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