Hemingway's sympathy in this story is not with the victim Macomber or the huntress Margo instead, it is with Wilson. Francis Macomber even admits that he feels 'beaten,' defeated by this sexual safari, because when Wilson explains that he always gives the natives lashes rather than fine them, Macomber adds that 'We all take a beating every day. Francis knows that Margot is stalking Wilson, and Wilson realizes that Francis knows who Margot's prey is. Consider who is stalking whom in this story. In this story, the situation of the hunter and the hunted takes on far more significance than merely humans hunting for African lions and water buffaloes. Interestingly, Hemingway points out that Wilson always carries a double-size cot for just such occasions as this one obviously, Wilson is a womanizer and in a sense a prostitute.

That night, Margot visits Wilson's tent and has sex with him. In contrast to the two men, Margo comments that her face is the one that is red today because of all the shame she feels for her husband.Д«ehind all of this talk about red faces, however, is the fact that after Francis' act of cowardice, Margot leans forward in their motor car and kisses Wilson while Macomber looks on. For example, Margot points out that the face of Robert Wilson, the safari guide, is red (from too much sun) Francis Macomber replies that his face is also red however, his is red from embarrassment. In the first part of this story, readers hear all sorts of things that have meaning only later in the story.

Next day, as she observes Francis gaining a measure of courage as he engages in a standoff with a charging water buffalo, she realizes that if Francis continues to prove himself strong and willful and courageous, he might leave her and rid himself forever of her sharp-tongued ridicule.ДЄs the standoff with the second water buffalo becomes more intense as the water buffalo's horns inch closer and closer to goring Francis, Margot takes aim at the water buffalo, shooting Francis in the back of the head, and he dies at the most courageous moment of his 'short happy life.' She makes no secret of this as she slips off in the middle of the night for a rendezvous with the safari guide, Robert Wilson. Of course, though, she has been contemptuous of him for some time Francis' running from the lion like a scared rabbit has only increased her dislike for her unmanly husband. In a flashback, the reader realizes that Macomber and his beautiful wife, Margot, are wealthy Americans, and that this jaunt is their first safari - and that Macomber, when faced with his first lion, bolted and fled, earning the contempt of his wife. However, members of the safari are acting as though 'nothing had happened.' The natives at camp carried Macomber into camp triumphantly, but the gun-bearers who witnessed Macomber's cowardice do not participate in the celebration. However, at the moment, he has just demonstrated that he is a coward.

Francis Macomber is on an African safari Macomber is thirty-five years old, a trim, fit man who holds a number of big-game fishing records.

Cliff note version of siddhartha