Clean Well Light Place A Clean Well Lighted Place Earnest Hemmingway Analysis The conversation starts out with the narrator setting up the story and the scene, as most do. An indication is made about the setting in the café with the leaves giving a shadow and hence telling us that the story was taking place on a patio or street of the café. An old man that was deaf and seems to be on hard times, which he was, especially after finding out that he had recently tried to commit suicide. One of the waiters who’s table the old man was sitting at began to get impatient with him just sitting there taking up his time, that he felt was better suited for sleep since three-o-clock in the morning was too late for bedtime.
This was one indicator
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When the younger waiter had left and the bartender came into play, it reminded me of the same scenario that had just played out between the younger waiter and the old man.
This time it was the bartender somewhat being the young waiter and the older waiter being the old man. When he said the Lords Prayer replacing words with “nada” he was giving the inclination that no one really gave a damn, and he might as well play out the cards life is dealing him. He also continued to talk about the lighting in the place as if he and the old man felt safe because of it, almost a kind of phobia about the dark. Safe in the shadow of the leaves of the trees, yet he could see everything and everyone around him. At the end when he was going to bed and the sun was coming up he said that he must have insomnia, and made it expectable by believing that a lot of people have it, so nothing was wrong with him. The older waiter and the old man seem to both be suffering from depression, however, the older man was in a far more advanced state of the problem. The older waiter could see that his life of loneliness would eventually perpetuate into what he had experience that night during his visit with the other waiter and how the old man had been treated. I think that as we get older we also realize that life can take turns for the worse and true realization of what could happen to us is more believable. When we are younger everyone likes to
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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
In “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” the narrator describes the importance of the cafe compared to all the other places that are open to convey the idea of loneliness and despair. Through the use of imagery, symbolism, point of view and, allegory Ernest Hemingway establishes a connection between the older waiter and the deaf guy, as he illustrates the significance the well-lit cafe brings to their lonely night. As the waiters discuss their thoughts on being open so late, the older waiter claims to be one of those who enjoy the aura of the cafe being open so late compared to other places. “With all those who do not want to go to bed. With all those who need a light for the night.“ The role the cafe plays to diminish loneliness and despair does not go unrecognized by the older waiter and deaf guy who find their escape in that clean well-lit cafe. Loneliness screams louder at night for those who walk through it by themselves. They look to find comfort in a well-lit place with a calm and pleasant aura. The feeling displayed between the old deaf man and older waiter does not register with the younger waiter who does not understand the search of finding peace found in the cafe. The younger waiter has a wife to go home to as the older deaf man and older waiter have nothing and that is their escape from their dark loneliness, the cafe. Since it is clear that Ernest Hemingway has established that the old deaf man
The younger waiter believes he has “no regard for those who have to work.” On the contrary the older waiter also doesn’t belong to a family and attempts to explain “he stays up because he likes it” “it’s clean and well lighted” the light acting as a metaphorical parallel to the comfort the café offers in his otherwise dark life. Seeing as the older waiter understands him he does his best to make the customer feel he belongs and build a relationship with him. He realises that not everyone shares the same perspective realising “it’s not only a question of youth” but in this case a question of lack of relationships allowing sympathy and explaining his actions.
There is an apparent unity seen between the old man and the older waiter. Opposite from the young waiter, the older waiter and old man seem devastatingly lonely and worn out by life. While the young waiter is rude and insistently talks down to the old man, the older waiter defends him. He too understands and appreciates a clean, well-lighted café opposed to a bar or bodega. The older men understand each other without there being any communication between them. In the final line the reader is able to truly understand the older waiters view of his own morality, “He disliked bars and bodegas. A clean, well-lighted café was a very different thing. Now, without thinking further, he went home to his room. He would lie in the bed and finally,
We get the picture of the old man drinking and the two waiters observing him and understanding he was drunk. Unlike A Rose for Emily we find out a little more about the character when we find out that the old man is deaf and is a regular client at this café. We also get a better depiction of the scene, “…In the daytime the street was dusty, but at night the dew settled the dust…” Ernest Hemingway also sets up a time frame for us. He lets us know that it is late at night.
The blind man probably noticed the way the husband sees things, that’s why he engaged in all these activity with him. They drank and smoked together until the wife comes in and kind of interrupt them for a while but eventually she fell asleep, as in “A&P” when the girls finally came to check out with Sammy, the manager Mr. Lengel comes and disturbed Sammy’s job, he is the manager at some point he had to do his job and keep the store running normally “Lengel comes in from haggling with a truck of cabbages on the lot and is about to scuttle into that door marked MANAGER… He comes over and says, “Girls, this isn’t the beach” (John Updike 14). At each of these specific moment the life of each of the protagonists, is starting to change. With the husband in “Cathedral”, he started to draw a Cathedral with the blind man, with his eyes close, “Close your eyes now,”
Ernest Hemingway's short story, "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place," first published in 1933, is written in his characteristic terse style. It is the story of two waiters having a conversation in a café, just before closing up and going home for the night. They cannot leave because they still have a customer. One is anxious to get home to his wife, while the other sympathizes with the old man sitting at the table. Without realizing it, they are discussing the meaning of life.
Upon reading this internal monologue, one’s natural inclination may be to dismiss the older waiter, and perhaps by extension Hemingway, as merely depressed, or lonely, or haunted by some unspoken tragedy. However, such an interpretation of the above passage, and thus the story’s theme, would be an egregious oversimplification. Instead, it would be far more accurate to regard the older waiter’s worldview as something akin to existential nihilism, which is the belief that, essentially, life has no intrinsic meaning, that humanity’s very existence means nada. And as one comes to this realization, one truly grasps the theme of life’s meaninglessness that “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” exhibits.
Likewise, both stories are written in third person limited omniscient point of view. They have the same kind of theme. The protagonists of “Miss Brill” and “A Clean Well-Lighted Place”, Miss Brill and the older waiter, are both alone and by the setting of the stories, we can say that they are lonely, have their own perspectives of looking at the world, and are hated by the younger generation. Miss Brill is an older English woman who lives alone and teaches English at France. She fantasizes several things.
In the story “A Clean, Well- Lighted Place” by Earnest Hemingway begins with the main character and his co-worker in a café. The two are analyzing, and discussing a deaf, drunk Oldman, who is their last customer of the day. As the deaf old man insists on having more whiskey, the main character informs the young waiter as to why and how the old man tried to commit suicide. They began to converse about the Oldman’s depressed life. The younger waiter is in a rush to go home to his wife, while the older waiter is patient and he stands up for the Oldman, being able to relate to him. Hemingway’s sentence structure and writing style represents the comparison and contrast between setting, people, and objects, along with emphasizing how it is to have and be nothing.
In the small town of Charleston, an older, lonely man sits at the bar in a Diner. A young couple sat at the other end drinking coffee. The woman was dressed nice in a pretty red dress and the man looking dapper with his blue suit and hat. The older man is a regular at this diner. He arrives at the same time, sits on the same stool, and is always dressed nice as if he were about to meet someone. He never did though. The waiter knows the older man by name and says, "Hey Hopper, anything new today or just the same old, same old?" whenever he would walk in. Hopper would just shrug his shoulders as usual and sit on his stool. He looks at the couple at the end of the bar and nods, while waiting for the waiter to get him his
Hemingway's second portrayal of symbolism that a reader may distinguish is the café itself. The café represents a sanctuary of the evilness of the world. The namesake of the short story is a clue for the reader to see that the café would represent some form of an asylum not only from the elements of nature, but also safety from evil. An example of the usefulness of this sanctuary is how the deaf old man uses the café as a safe-haven to be to himself after the incident where he almost succeeded in committing suicide and enjoys the comfort the café gives. The old waiter represents in the café the kindness and caring that the café should provide; whereas the younger waiter is more of a materialistic character. He clearly displays shallowness and selfishness. Arthur Waldhorn writes that the older waiter helps keep the light on a little longer at the café for those, who like himself, 'do not want to go to bed.' (P 28) The younger waiter is a protagonist in attitude of the older waiter. The philosophy of Nihilism is brought into this theme when the older man recites the Lord's Prayer but substitutes the word "nada" for every noun in it. Nihilism is brought onto a larger scale because it is very evident that there is nothing to believe in, even as a
The old man signals the younger waiter over for another drink, and the waiter declines to server him because he feels that the man is getting drunk and doesn't want to get stuck waiting for him to finish. The younger waiter then comments that the old man should
Furthermore, the setting contributes to the structure of the story, like cartilages in a human body. The café can be viewed as a workplace and also as a place of peaceful socialization. Each person deals with despair differently. Having the setting at a café where it was mentioned that it was quiet help structure the story that it is neither a depressing story nor, a happy story. The two waiters who were gossiping about the old man mentioned that he had committed suicide but, he was saved. Being in a café is different than rather being in a bar or anywhere else. The café signifies a place for space or time, depending on the person. The old man is not trying to cure his despair but rather subdue it. The setting could have taken place anywhere but it also could have affected the structure of the story differently. For example, when the older waiter was out trying to kill time due to insomnia, he went to a bar but, it was not soothing; therefore, he went home. This proves how the setting was able to support its main structure of having a café rather than a different place.