A Clean, Well Lighted Place By Ernest Hemingway

In “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place”, author, Ernest Hemingway shows the heart wrenching tale of a man who dreads going home in fear of being lonely. The old man would sit in the bar until two/three in the morning drinking away the moonlight. One of the waiters became furious with him as the waiter wanted to get home to his wife in bed. One quote that shows the waiters misunderstanding towards the older gentleman is: “He’s lonely. I’m not lonely. I have a wife waiting in bed for me” (144). While the younger waiter could not wait to go home to his wife, the older gentleman had no one but his niece to go home to. He once had a wife and she is deceased. One revealing quote is: “It is not only a question of youth and confidence although those things

How has your understanding of the concept of belonging been shaped by the representation of relationships and events that you have encountered in the texts you have studied for the Area of Study: Belonging?

Sadness, frustration, or discontent, however it’s put, there is an obvious difference with the characters in, “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” by Ernest Hemingway, and their ideas of mortality and old age. The short story shows the concept of “nothingness,” displayed through a very depressing view on life. This suggesting that all people, even those who are happy and content, will eventually end up lonely, drunk, or unhappy. By allowing a reader to view this from three diverse perspectives, Hemingway is able to render how someone’s attitude of their own life can go from one extreme to another. Allowing suicide as a final option to surface for some.

Authors connect to their readers through a special written language by using different elements to create a story. These elements they choose are to create a mood, a plot, and some thrill to their fiction. Ernest Hemingway is an author that prefers to write stories based on personal experience of his journalism in his literary style to bring out a sense of understanding to the reader with a character. “In Another Country” Ernest Hemingway uses the elements of setting, tone, and mood to convey a sense of loneliness that the soldiers’ experience, with the setting and by painting a vivid picture of the war effect on them and the world to the reader with the tone and mood.

In a “Clean, Well-lighted Place,” author Ernest Hemingway uses his direct, unadorned, detail oriented imagery and a minimalist style of writing to convey the philosophical idea of existentialism. Existentialism is a way of life that means one must create their own essence but, they have no predetermined purpose (Meyers 558). This notion of existentialism was very important during Hemingway 's time period. The war was shaping and shaking people 's belief of God, happiness and love (Meyers 558). This created the pathway to existentialism. In fact, in his short story readers are given an insight into the search for the meaning of life. Hemingway uses two of his main characters too show a current life of un-fulfillment, loneliness, despair and depression. However, both of these characters are on the search for the meaning of life.

Hemingway chose a unique approach to his story. Many short stories are filled with formal speech. However, Hemingway presented to us his story, without using exquisite words or elongated sentences. His writing was direct and minimal, but also precise. The author allowed us to create our own environment, by playing off common experiences in everyday life. By doing that he produced an atmosphere that can easily be fashioned and manipulated by the reader in order to create a relatable surrounding.

On stressful evenings people often find themselves walking in circles hunting for an escape; as seen in Ernest Hemingway’s, “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place”, which exemplifies the life of an old man and two waiters. The old man is doing exactly what most people do when they have reached rock bottom. He is hunting for peace in his life and has decided to find such solace drinking in a local café. The little café in the short story symbolizes a safe zone for people who feel unwanted, alone, and in despair. Hemingway uses the younger waiter as a foil for the older waiter to emphasize the opposing personalities and beliefs of the waiters. The ambiguity in the dialog between the two waiters evolved into a scandal relating to reproductions of the short story.

Hemingway’s “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place,” like all of his other stories, is based around a famous code of behavior. The philosophical premises that are demonstrated in Hemingway’s code of behavior tell people to accept that there are no guidelines or rules in life, face reality and see things exactly as they are, no matter how difficult, contain their despair and self-pity by sheer willpower, don’t make trouble for others, and instead of judging others, people should view the unenlightened with irony and pity. By analyzing “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place,” the reader can find different examples of this code of behavior within Hemingway’s writing.

  While Hemingway's short story "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" is usually interpreted as an intensely poetic description of despair, it can with equal validity be seen instead as mankind's never ending yearning to find spiritual peace. Hemingway's short story displayed this emotional journey in many different ways. First, the title itself is a symbol for man's desire to find a state of tranquillity, safety, and comfort. Hemingway also showed this in the story's setting, which was used as a symbol for a sense of order, for it was late, the cafe was empty, and the men there were at ease. Finally, Hemingway showed this desire in the contrasting actions between the

How does Ernest Hemingway’s life reflect into his writing of “A Clean Well-Lighted Place” and “The Snows of Kilimanjaro”? Of the stories the two that stood out to me were “A Clean Well-Lighted Place” and “The Snows of Kilimanjaro”. These two stories demonstrate how Hemingway writes about very dark times for people and himself. Hemingway’s experiences were involved in the writing of all three of these stories. Hemingway's life because towards the end he had troubles with himself, hallucinations, and thought people were after him. In “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” and “A Clean Well-Lighted Place”, Hemingway demonstrates hope because he uses light as imagery for people to escape insomnia and death.

Though not possessed of the same potency as the story’s narration, another significant tool Hemingway employs in constructing the theme of “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” is symbolism. Symbolism, which commonly consists of concrete objects alluding to abstract notions (Kennedy and Gioia 202), manifests itself in “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” in the form of “clean and pleasant” cafés and the night-time hours during which they are frequented (Hemingway 161). In Hemingway’s story, the titular “clean, well-lighted

Edgar All Poe uses literary devices in order to create a pragmatically desolate mood in his short story The Fall of the House of Usher. Poe’s famed melodramatic writing style shines through with his use of idioms in this story; his masterfully described setting also helps to create a feeling of dread and isolation. The story begins with the description of a bleak house surrounded by an unkempt yard complete with rampant bushes, rotten trees, and a putrid tarn. The narrator of the story tells how the bleakness and wildness of the estate has inspired a sense of dread and isolation in him.

In the both short stories – “Miss Brill” by Katherine Mansfield, and “A Clean Well-Lighted Place” by Ernest Hemingway, we can find some similarities and differences as well. Even though their settings are different from one another, both stories’ settings really matter to the main motive of the stories. If they would have different settings, the stories’ themes wouldn’t be the same as they are now. The settings dramatically reinforce the isolation and solitude of the protagonists in the both stories.

In Ernest Hemingway’s “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place,” Hemingway introduces a protagonist, the old man, as a loner who is more distinct due to his deafness. The old man’s isolation stems from his deafness. Hemingway highlights interior contrasts like old and young between the characters. Hemingway emphasizes exterior contrasts such as light and dark through setting. Both waiters and the old man’s ideals are challenged by the nothingness that society entails. Hemingway illustrates alienation and existentialism through the atmospheric setting and contentious dialogue.

What makes Hemingway's work such a masterpiece is its ability to make the reader relate. The theme of solitude and loneliness is experienced by every human. In Ernest Hemingway's short story “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place”, Hemingway addresses many meaningful and purposeful issues. Issues that relate to life and our purpose of life. In the story the young waiter is having the topic of life and its purpose brought upon him, he learns that others find purpose in other things and places. Things that he may find useless. Throughout the short story, Hemingway uses plenty of literary devices, symbolism and literary structure to establish the theme and mood of the story. It is important to note Hemingway’s