The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber by Ernest Hemingway: How Francis's Personality Shifted

In the short story, The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber, the main character Francis undergoes a drastic shift in personality between the beginning and end of the story, transforming from a coward to a courageous individual. Various perspectives on personality exist to explain this phenomenon, such as the type perspective, the trait perspective, and the motive/need perspective. In this paper, I will assess Francis’s personality from all these perspectives and argue that the motive/need perspective is the best explanation for Francis’s character change, because motives and needs fluctuate and change depending on external stimuli, while types and traits do not.

Before I assess Francis’s personality in terms of types, it is important to remember that types are discrete categories that one either belongs to, or not. I will use the now-popular Meyers-Briggs Type Test to determine Francis’s personality. I find Francis to be extraverted rather than introverted, sensing rather than intuitive, feeling rather than thinking, and perceiving rather than judging. I arrived at this conclusion because many of Francis’s actions appear to be spontaneous and rash, such as his harsh dialogue with his wife during his angry outbursts, and his sudden panic upon seeing the wounded lion charging at him. Even Francis’s decision to become more courageous the following day was a decision driven by emotion, since logical decisions do not fluctuate as much. Therefore, the key components of Francis’s type personality are the feeling, perceiving, and sensing traits. The extraversion is hard to discern, but it appeared to be the best fit, given Francis’s consistent dialogue throughout the story.

In contrast to type personality, trait personality views characteristics as continuous and dichotomous, lying somewhere on a scale between two extremes. A person would therefore not be “extraverted”, but rather possess a certain level of extraversion. I would characterize Francis as cowardly, irritable, and prideful. The cowardice is obvious when Francis flees from the lion, but it is also seen in his inability to confront his wife – to the point where she kisses Wilson in front of him and he hardly responds. Francis is also irritable because he responds passive-aggressively toward his wife during their conversations (“let up on the bitchery just a little”), rather than devising a constructive manner to express his frustrations. Lastly, Francis is prideful, because the only reason he elects to be less cowardly is out of self-interest for his manhood and reputation, not out of a desire to grow as a person.

In terms of motives and needs, Francis’s personality is clearly characterized by a high need for achievement and intimacy, but oriented more toward avoiding failure than achieving success. In other words, Francis needs to feel a sense of achievement because he is scared of failing at tasks, and he needs to feel a sense of intimacy because he is scared of being alone without a partner. This theory is supported by the fact that people with a high need for achievement tend to prefer moderate level tasks, which in Francis’s case is hunting buffalo rather than lions, and the fact that Francis seems to be controlled by his wife, out of fear of her leaving him. In addition, those who are better characterized as wanting to avoid failure rather than achieve success are more likely to be less emotionally satisfied, which explains Francis’s tumultuous emotional swings throughout the story. Furthermore, the external influence, or press, of Francis’s manipulative wife and comparatively more courageous companion (Wilson) likely also plays a role in Francis’s motivations, since they create a greater sense of urgency in terms of needing achievement and intimacy.

In order to best explain Francis’s rapid change in behavior by the end of the story, I argue that the motive perspective is best suited to assess this change. The very basis of type and trait personality is that types and traits are static characteristics that a person possesses, though with slight differences in their classification (categorical vs continuous), and thus produce consistent behaviors. On the other hand, the basis of motive personality is that behaviors arise from motives, which are dynamic and depend on the strength of the motive, the duration since the motive was last satisfied, the possible existence of any external stimuli (press), or the possible existence of competing motives. With Francis, I find that the press of his wife’s infidelity and his humiliation in front of the hunting group increased the strength of his motivation for achievement, which led to his seemingly more courageous behavior by the end of the story. Furthermore, I would argue that before his incident with the lion, Francis was motivated by wanting to preserve whatever intimacy he had with his wife, which was why he did not stand up to her (except in passive aggressive ways). When Francis was then humiliated in front of the hunting party and his wife, his need for achievement then outweighed his need for intimacy, which is why his behavior shifted.

It is clear that almost any instance where a person’s personality seemingly changes drastically, the motive/need perspective is the best lens for assessing this change. Motives and needs explain situational inconsistencies very well, in contrast with traits and types, which imply relatively consistent behavior and do not allow much room for drastic character change. The motive/need perspective also better captures the complexity of human behavior by addressing external factors that affect our decisions, rather than arguing that behaviors stem from internal sources only. Francis’s drastic character shift is therefore best explained by competing motives that shifted when put into a humiliating situation.