what is the lion symbolic of in the short happy life of francis macomber?

Answer 1

I don't think the lion in that Hemingway story was really paramount to what the writer was trying to say. Both the lion and the act of lion hunting were writer 'devices' used as story backdrops. The story itself is about a mousy, timid man of low self-esteem named Francis who finally finds his own concept of personal and perceived 'courage' right before his wife shoots him. It's called 'The Short Happy Life...' because the moments he had to relish as a man who has finally displayed courage were, indeed, short lived.

The lion could just as easily have been an elephant or a rhino or a bear, any animal that posed a physical threat to human life.

If the lion is symbolic at all it is symbolic as a 'trophy', a badge of honor of some kind, that a man can claim as a testament to his courage. Like the Cowardly Lion in The Wizard Of Oz being giving a medal to prove his courage the lion in the Hemingway story it is only a writer's device used as a symbol of the ritual to a perceived passage to manhood.