Hemingway's short story, "A Clean Well-Lighted Place" .

Scott Morgan

March 7, 2003

ENGL 102

Meloy

Title

When our lives begin, we are innocent and life is beautiful, but as we grow older and time passes, we discover that not everything about life is quite so pleasing. Along with the joys and happiness we experience there is also sadness and loneliness. In Hemingway’s short story, “A Clean Well-Lighted Place,” two waiters in a café are discussing one of their regular customers, an elderly, deaf man. The customer comes in every night and drinks his glasses of brandy slowly and very carefully, peacefully becoming drunk. The older waiter seems to relate with the old man because he too doesn’t have anyone to go home to while the younger waiter has a wife waiting for him at home and is in a hurry to close up and get home to her. Hemingway uses an old drunken man, the young waiter, and the old waiter to show how loneliness effects the older characters and how this clean well-lighted place is a necessary illusion against the darkness of their existence.

When the story begins, the old deaf man is sitting outside the Spanish café in the shadow of the leaves of a tree that was made against the electric light. The narrator says, “The two waiters inside the café knew that the old man was a little drunk, and while he was a good client they knew that if he became too drunk he would leave without paying, so they kept a watch on him” (289). From this it seems that the old drunken man is very lonely and sits alone in a pleasant place to drink away his sorrows.

The two waiters sit inside and try to figure out why the old man tried to kill himself a week earlier. The older waiter seems to relate to the old man’s situation. He knows where the old man is coming from because like the old man he is old and lives alone and doesn’t have anyone to go home to. He thinks that the old man tried to kill himself because he realizes he has nothing else to live for except the clean and well-lighted café where her drinks away his sorrows. The alcohol becomes his someone to look forward ...

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As the night weirs on the old man is gradually getting drunk. When the waiter in a hurry goes back out to pour the brandy he tells the old deaf man, “You should have killed yourself last week” (289). Even though the old man is deaf and could not hear this statement, this shows how the younger waiter has no respect or compassion for the old man. He doesn’t care that the old man is lonely; all he cares about is getting home to his wife. He felt the old man had no regard for those who had to work. When the old man signals inside yet again for more brandy and the younger waiter goes out and tells him that he can’t have anymore because they are closed and signals for him to go home. So the old man gets up and pays for his drinks, leaves a tip for the waiter and begins to walk home. The younger waiter proceeded to close the blinds and close up the store an hour early only because he was tired and wanted to go home, further showing his lack of compassion for not only the old man but for anyone else who would have a need for the cafe.

The older waiter was sad that the younger waiter closed early. The older waiter then opens up to the young waiter telling him his true feelings. He tells him that he lacks everything that the young waiter has. He then says, “I am of those who like to stay late at the café. With all those who do not want to go to bed. With all of those who need a light for the night”(290). The young waiter then says, “Hombre, there are bodegas open all night long”(290). The old waiter returns with, “You do not understand. This is a clean and pleasant café. It is well-lighted”(290). After he says this the young waiter says goodbye and leaves. The older waiter reveals to the younger waiter that he too is lonely like the old man and that he knows what it is like to go home to emptiness at night. The young waiter doesn’t understand because he has his wife to go home to.

After the young waiter leaves the older waiter continues this conversation with himself. He says to himself, “What did he fear? It was not a fear or dread, It was a nothing that he knew too well.... It was only that and light was all it needed and a certain cleanness and order. Some lived in it and never felt it but he knew it all was nada y pues nada y nada y pues nada”(291). He is talking about the old man and what he feared. He is saying that the man had nothing to fear and that all he needed was light because the darkness was lonely. He then starts to recite his own version of the Lord’s prayer, using nada, the Spanish word for “nothing” in place or words in the prayer. I guess this is his way to say that he too, like the old man, has nothing, not even a God, to go home to.

The old waiter then walks into a bar and stands at the bar and orders a drink. He then says to the bar tender, “The light is very bright but the bar is unpolished”(291). The bartender said nothing to him. The old waiter is saying that this is a nice bar but it is not as cleans as it should be. It lacks the clean part of a clean and well-lighted place. He then goes home and lies in his bed and finally goes to sleep after the daylight comes up and says to himself, “it is probably insomnia. Many must have it”(291). This lets us know that he is an insomniac, one that does during the night and sleeps during the day. That is why he waited until the sun came up to finally go to sleep.

Hemingway describes this Spanish café as a haven for the older characters to escape their loneliness. They have nothing else to live for, nothing to look forward to, and no pleasure left in life except for the comfort of being able to spend a little time in a clean, well-lighted place. This is a necessary illusion against the darkness of the older characters’ existence in this short story.