We as the reader discover through the conversation between both waiters that the old man recently attempted suicide. By taking into account both of the waiter’s perspectives the reader can’t help but question whether age is significant in understanding the history behind the old man and his burdens?
The old man's death wish is further played out through the metaphor of insomnia, an ailment which he apparently shares with the older waiter. 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. The only hope left, as drunk as he is, is that he may pass out when he arrives home.
One can infer from the author’s language that the younger of the two waiters is obviously impatient with the old man; he just wishes the customer would stop drinking and go home, so that he can go home too. His impatience disillusions him from seeing the importance of the cafe to the old man’s survival. He cannot comprehend and relate to the reasoning as to why the old man nurses so many drinks over so long a period, night after night, in the quiet cafe. He particularly can’t fathom what could have led the old man to attempt suicide, because the old man ‘has plenty of money,’ and the young waiter cannot imagine a source of despair any more profound than a shortage of ready cash. Furthermore, the author deliberately emphasizes the younger waiter’s disgust for the old man as he says, “I wouldn't want to be that old. An old man is a nasty thing.” One can’t help but conjecture that the old man if given a choice would rather chose to be deaf than to face the nastiness of caducity and hear the words of disdain spoken by his juniors.
The older waiter, on the other hand, understands despair only too well. He is disheartened when the young waiter insults the old man and is even more grieved when the young waiter closes the cafe and sends the old man away. As he says to the younger waiter, "You have youth, confidence, and a job. You have everything." The old man, on the other hand, has nothing -no one to go home to, nothing to look forward to, no pleasure left in life, except the small comfort of being able to spend a little time in a clean, well-lighted place. It is clear to the reader that the older waiter understands and can relate to the old man’s actions as we later see that he too walks into the night, unable to find his own clean, well-lighted place in which to pass a lonely sleepless night.
After the younger waiter leaves to go home to his waiting bride, the older waiter continues the conversation with himself. He knows the value of his cafe; when you have nothing else to live for, a place like this can be a small fortress against the huge, all-encompassing darkness of existence. It is an illusion, but a necessary one. What lies beyond the warm glow of the cafe is nothingness: a great existential emptiness that turns the Catholic faith in a loving God into a horrible travesty. To escape contemplating about his loneliness he seeks refuge away from the darkness in his home away from home, his cafe.
The essence that makes this story significant is the way that the author manages to evoke the universal and timeless dichotomy between the young waiter, who, with his whole life ahead of him, is ‘all confidence’ and the elderly patron of the cafe who realizes there is literally nothing to live for. The pivotal character here is the older waiter, who, unlike the young waiter, realizes that the world is ‘nada and pues nada’ (nothing and more nothing), but who nonetheless has the stoicism to keep on living. This story is filled with images of despair. The contrasts between light and dark, youth and age are harsh and well defined. The reader leaves the story with a feeling that there is no escape from the doldrums of the winter years of life. Perhaps it is Hemingway's own terror of old age and infirmity that he is trying to communicate to the reader.
