they do in England." If Wilson is intended to be the voice of morality, then the accusation is damning. But if Wilson is a less-perfect character himself, then his judgment of Margot is suspect because Wilson chased down the buffalo in a car, violating the law and perhaps also Hemingway's code of hunting fairness. Kenneth G. Johnston argues that Wilson "has much to gain by making Mrs. Macomber believe that the death of her husband could be construed as murder," since he could lose his license if Margot accurately described Wilson's use of the car in the buffalo hunt. In The Lonely Voice: A Study of the Short Story, author and literary critic Frank O'Connor, though generally an admirer of Hemingway, gives a colorful and uncharitable summation of "The Short Happy Life": Francis runs away from a lion, which is what most sensible men would do if faced by a lion, and his wife promptly cuckolds him with the English manager of their big-game hunting expedition. As we all know, good wives admire nothing in a husband except his capacity to deal with lions, so we can sympathize with the poor woman in her trouble. But next day Macomber, faced with a buffalo, suddenly becomes a man of superb courage, and his wife, recognizing that[...] for the future she must be a virtuous wife, blows his head off. [...] To say that the psychology of this story is childish would be to waste good words. As farce it ranks with Ten Nights in a Bar Room or any other Victorian morality you can think of. Clearly, it is not the working out of a personal problem that for the vast majority of men and women has no validity whatever. See also John Henry Patterson (author) References Bibliography Bender, Bert. "Margot Macomber’s Gimlet." College Literature. 8.1 (1981): 13. JSTOR. College Literature. Web. 3 December 2011. . Gaillard, Jr., Theodore. “The Critical Menagerie in ‘The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber.’” The English Journal. 60.1 (1971): 31–35. National Council of Teachers of English. Web. 3 December 2011 . Catalano, Susan M. "Henpecked to heroism: placing Rip Van Winkle and Francis Macomber in the American renegade tradition." The Hemingway Review 17.2 (1998): 111+. 3 December 2011. Baker, Sheridan Warner. "Green Hills and the Gulf." Ernest Hemingway; an Introduction and Interpretation. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1967. 99. Print. Short stories by Ernest