Women the guilty threads

Women the guilty threads

It is undeniable that the author has developed fascinating roles to be depicted by women in both stories, under study, in the current paper. The first work is titled The Snows of Kilimanjaro and the second is The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber. The first story entails the biographical narration of a writer by the name Harry in his last hours, having developed gangrene infection on his leg after a thorn prick. He is on a game travel or safari in Africa and is stranded in the wild. In minutely despair he narrates his life experiences to his wife Helen. The second story unfolds as a rich American couple is on an African safari that entails wild game hunting. In this story, Francis and his wife Margaret, portray a couple where the quality of relationship is determined by the submissive party meeting the others expectations. As the husband illustrates cowardice in the first hunting experience, the wife considers it despicable and consequently sleeps with their guide who had shown courage in the expedition. In both stories, women emerge as the influential guilty thread in the society’s fabric regardless of whether they are innocent.

This is clear in the first story where Harry blames his wife Helen for the happiness he missed and the opportunities he procrastinated regarding developing his talent and career as a writer. Helen on the other hand is comforting and encouraging him in efforts to keep his hopes alive as they wait for help. Despite this, Harry is offensive and degrading to the core as he compares her to his first wife Cynthia. Cynthia emerges as another scapegoat where she carries the blame for her pregnancy while it was Harry’s child. In despair, she forced to choose between appeasing Harry – who is career oriented – and keeping the pregnancy. She opts for a predetermined miscarriage. This further reinstates the author’s depiction of women as guilty in case of a societal or relational mishap regardless of the man’s role.

In the second story of the Francis Macomber, the woman in this instance is partly guilty. Never the less, no chance is given to the likelihood of a positive intention as she shoots the water buffalo only to kill her husband, Francis Macomber. Margaret emerges as a demanding and quick to ridicule woman. She is oblivious to the fact that her husband has previously held records in game fishing and concentrates on the fact that that he stumbled and ran on his first encounter with a lion. The author portrays another dimension of women in the society where they are heavily affluent, regardless of men appearing as dominant. This can be exemplified again where in an attempt to please his wife Margaret, Francis embarks on another hunting expedition to display his courage and salvage Margaret’s opinion of him.

It is notable in both stories that the women emerged as affluent over both the negative and positive events of the men’s lives. Harry attributes his failures in life to marrying the wrong woman while frustrating his first love to eloping with a dancer. This is further illustrated in the second story where the couple’s guide heavily insinuates intention to murder on Margaret’s part as she attempted to shoot the water buffalo as both him and Francis missed their shots. The ultimate depiction in both stories is that the woman is a home of negative intentions regardless of the prevailing circumstances.