Language

Style of language

The language of the short story “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber” by Ernest Hemingway is neutral. The narration uses contractions, and the vocabulary mostly employs common words and phrases, in a straightforward style. For instance, “It was now lunch time and they were all sitting under the double green fly of the dining tent pretending that nothing had happened.” (p. 1, ll. 1-2). 

There is a lot of dialogue, through which the characters come to life. Each character has a unique voice. Wilson’s style is straightforward, sometimes using short, fragmented sentences to get his point across, for instance: “ ‘Cleans out your liver’, said Wilson. ‘Damn funny things happen to people.’ ” (p. 17, ll. 22-23). Margaret is often ironic, expressing herself in a humorous, pretentious manner, such as: “ ‘How is the beautiful red-faced Mr. Wilson? Are you feeling better, Francis, my pearl?’ ” (p. 3, ll. 57-58). Margaret also addresses Macomber using many terms of endearments, such as “sweet” (p. 12, l. 7), or “darling” (p. 12, l. 4). Those are used even though the two are clearly in conflict. This could point to how Margaret does not take Macomber seriously.

A lot of the text also consist...