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Why does Wilson say "You don't shoot them from cars"?

Francis Macomber is obviously afraid of the lion. He doesn't want to get out of the safety of the steel body of the car and expose himself to being charged. But he makes one of his many mistakes in asking Wilson, "Why not shoot him from where I am?" Macomber thus shows his fear. Wilson simply tells him, "You don't shoot them from cars." It would be bad sportsmanship. The hunter should at least give...

Francis Macomber is obviously afraid of the lion. He doesn't want to get out of the safety of the steel body of the car and expose himself to being charged. But he makes one of his many mistakes in asking Wilson, "Why not shoot him from where I am?" Macomber thus shows his fear. Wilson simply tells him, "You don't shoot them from cars." It would be bad sportsmanship. The hunter should at least give the lion some chance rather than just killing it with a high-powered rifle from a position of safety. Hemingway describes Macomber's fear as he has to get out of the car and move closer to the lion.



Macomber had not thought how the lion felt as he got out of the car. He only knew his hands were shaking and as he walked away from the car it was almost impossible for him to make his legs move.



Hemingway had plenty of experience with big-game hunting in Africa. He wrote a whole book about it titled Green Hills of Africa (1935). Francis Macomber illustrates one of Hemingway's favorite themes, which is that it is common to feel fear but that a man must learn to act effectively in spite of his fear. Macomber learns this truth when he and Wilson kill the three buffalo. Hemingway loved to watch bullfighting because he understood that the matadors were acting with "grace under pressure" in spite of their natural human fears of fighting an angry bull. He wrote about bullfighting in his book Death in the Afternoon (1932).

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