Character Analysis of "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place"

             Some people are concerned about their existence. The philosophy of existence forces people to make choices for themselves, in the idea that nothing is preordained. People must find the truth for themselves, the truth that they must be able to live. The younger age characterizes the youthful human nature, with a feeling of desperate for joyful and confident. In the other hand, the older age is in the opposite, with a belief of feeling of loneliness and despair. In Ernest Hemingway's "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place," the central idea of the story deals with the loneliness and despair associated with old age. Ultimately the author uses the old deaf man as the symbol of feeling. In addition, the conversations between two waiters develop the concept of loneliness.
             Loneliness is the condition where people will experience if there is nothing in their life. The older waiter understands the meaning of nothing. He said, "Some lived in it and never felt it but he knew it was nada y pues nada y pues nada." To pray is to indicate a belief in a religion, in a system and an order for life, to indicate, in short, that one has a map to life's profundities. But the reader knows from the story's opening that this is precisely what the older waiter does not have. Profundities are precisely that for which he has no name. Thus, it comes as no surprise that what he does in his praying is utilize a "form" (a prayer) but then deny its "contents" (Dell'Amico). If there is nothing to believe in, then life is nothing. People need to make their own choices for their life with nothing to believe but with a positive result for their choices. The old man stays late into the night, and sits "In the shadow the leaves of the tree made against the electric light." He chose to see the darkness instead of the light; he chose to live inside of the nothingness surrounded by the artificial light, or artificial truth that he has created for himself. Con...

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