A Short Commentary on A Clean Well-Lighted Place by Ernest Hemingway
In Ernest Hemingway’s, “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place”, there appears to be an emphasis put on the age differences between the waiters who worked in the café well lit from the cares of life as they were clearing away and closing up shop for the night. They are simply referred to as the old waiter and the younger waiter who each exude their own experiences of their lives showing what life means to them and how they take and view life from their age perspectives.
Within the story itself is another central character the deaf old man who is the person about whom the narrative revolves. To put it succinctly, the old deaf man comes daily to the café to have a few brandies to help drown the sorrows of his lonely life. This clean, well-lit café provides that café for him. However, at the beginning of the story the young waiter predominates the conversation by criticizing the old man wishing that he were dead by committing suicide since he had had already attempted this before only to be saved by his niece. He is proud of his youth asserting his high confidence and is seemingly sexual prowess with his new wife that he is so anxious to go home to and jump into his warm bed.
The old waiter intervenes by layering the story by his need for filling the void of his lonely existence by the “nada” prayer which envelopes the story with the mystery of life, as he sees it. In addition, he seeks refuge in a nearby bar, which is not so clean compared to the café where he works. It seems like anything would be good to fill his void of loneliness, desperation, and despair from life’s troubles topped off with his daily bout of insomnia. He old waiter’s characterization is in complete empathy with the condition of the old deaf man, who by his deafness may appear unaware of the waiters’ ruminations over him.
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