The most obvious image used by Hemingway in this story is that of the contrast between light and dark. The cafe is a "Clean, Well-Lighted Place". It is a refuge from the darkness of the night outside. Darkness is a symbol of fear and loneliness. The light symbolizes comfort and the company of others. There is hopelessness in the dark, while the light calms the nerves. Unfortunately for the old man, this light is an artificial one, and its peace is both temporary and incomplete. Again we see light and dark in the line reading “...the tables were empty except where the old man sat in the shadow of the leaves of the tree that moved slightly in the wind (Hemingway http://home.eol.ca/hem.htm).” The old man may be hiding in the shadows of the leaves because he recognizes the shortcoming of his refuge. Or perhaps he is secluded in the shadows so that the darkness of his old age will not be as visible as it would be in the full force of the electric light. Even his ears bring him a sort of darkness as they hold out the sounds of the world.
The old man's deafness is also a powerful image used in the story. “...the old man liked to sit late because he was deaf and now at night it was quiet and he could feel the difference (Hemingway http://home.eol.ca/hem.htm).” Deafness shuts the old man out from the rest of the world. In the day, everything must be a reminder to him of his disconnection from the world. Perhaps the busy streets, the conversations along the sidewalk, the animals, and the motor vehicles fill the town with noise all day. The old man knows this and recognizes that he is completely cut off from the sounds that he probably had not thought much of as a young man. However, in the café so late at night he is not missing much. In fact, he might prefer to miss the conversation about him between the two waiters. The younger waiter is disgusted by the old man. He says, “I wouldn't want to be that old. An old man is a nasty thing (Hemingway http://home.eol.ca/hem.htm)." The same thing may have been said by the old man when he was young. One might even suppose that the old man chooses to be deaf rather than to hear the words of scorn spoken by his juniors.
Another tool used by Hemingway in this story is the image of nothing. Nothing is what the old man wants to escape. The older waiter, who sometimes acts as the voice of the old man’s soul, describes his adversary: “It was all nothing, and a man was nothing, too...Some lived in it and never felt it but he knew it was nada y pues nada y pues nada. Our nada who art in nada nada be thy name thy kingdom nada they will be nada in nada as it is in nada. Give us this nada our daily nada and nada us our nada as we nada our nadas and nada us not into nada but deliver us from nada; pues nada. Hail nothing full of nothing, nothing is with thee... (Hemingway http://home.eol.ca/hem.htm).” Nothing is unending emptiness without comfort or companionship of man or God. The old man’s loneliness is empty. Though he’s wealthy, his days of retirement without useful work or purpose are empty. The emptiness of a life without progress or meaning is nothing, and this nothing afflicts the old man with a powerful grip. The only escape from this nothing is death.
The old man’s death-wish is played out through the metaphor of insomnia, an ailment which he apparently shares with the older waiter. Insomnia keeps the two awake through the hours of darkness. “In the second paragraph of the story, the older waiter informs the younger that their elderly customer had tried to commit suicide the week before (Marjorie Perloff 156).” However I disagree with Marjorie. I think that it is the younger waiter who informs the older waiter of their elderly customers failed suicide attempt. I think this because the older waiter is the one who better relates to the old man and therefore I don’t think that he would reply “nothing” to the reason for the old man’s state of despair. Nevertheless, the old man is racked with despair at his loneliness, the darkness of his life, his segregation from the world, and the nothingness that permeates his existence. He wants rest, but it is withheld from him. Even when he tries to take his own life, his niece cuts him down from his noose. Peace is far from this man, and what little relief he may find is incomplete like the artificial light of the cafe. He tries to drown himself in whiskey, but that also fails to bring him rest. There is only left the hope that, as drunk as he is, he may pass out when he arrives home. In spite of loss hope, the old man still has his dignity.
After being harshly treated by the younger waiter, and enduring much despair, it is the dignity of the old man that yet remains. “The waiter watched him go down the street, a very old man walking unsteadily but with dignity (Hemingway http://home.eol.ca/hem.htm).” “The old man holds fast to his dignity throughout the ever enduring darkness (Bennett 74).”
In conclusion, Hemingway uses much symbolism suggesting the old man’s despair. He repeatedly employs darkness as a symbol of emptiness and nothingness. Ironically, Hemingway inserts the Lord’s Prayer, replacing nearly every word with nada to suggest the nothingness in the old man’s life. This is ironic because Hemingway believes in the absence of God, leaving it up to man to survive. Thus the theme: Only our dignity enables us to survive the emptiness of modern life.
Hemingway, Ernest. “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place,” http://home.eol.ca/~command/hem.htm,1933, pp 1-4
Perloff, Marjorie. ‘‘Modernist Studies,’’ in Redrawing the Boundaries: The Transformation of English and American Studies, edited by Stephen Greenblatt and Giles Gunn, New York: The Modern Language Association, 1992, pp. 154-178.
Bennett, Warren. ‘‘Character, Irony, and Resolution in 'A Clean, Well-Lighted Place,'" in America Literature, Vol. XLII, March, 1970, pp. 70-79.
