A Clean Well Lighted Place
"A Clean, Well Lighted Place:" The Story of NadaErnest Hemingway's short-story "A Clean, Well Lighted Place" is a story of two very different waiters. The focus is on the older waiter whose nihilistic understanding, or "nada," keeps him up at night. With this understanding he can empathize with the lonely old man that sits "in the shadow of the leaves" of the cafe. The younger waiter is more impatient and is ready to go home to the "wife waiting in bed for [him.]" He cares very little about the old man's need for a dignified refuge at night. Using characterization and verbal irony the story illustrates what it means to cope with the harsh realization that everything we are and everything our society is based upon is empty.There are two kinds of characters in "A Clean, Well Lighted Place:" those unaware of the perceived hollowness of life and those that are all too aware of it. The younger waiter is ignorant of the impending emptiness that awaits him; he is only concerned about going home to his wife and, as Nathan Kotas writes in his article "Text Anomalies and the Waiters' Char
We know "his despair must have metaphysical, rather then physical, grounds" because the old waiter states, "[The old man] has plenty of money" (Benert 184). He knows "the world and himself, even his prayer [is] 'nothing' and by that act of awareness [can] survive with dignity" (Benert 185). " In other words, we need to cope with the emptiness of reality with a "clean, well lighted place" to occupy us away from "nada. He is "disillusioned" and "no more concerned about military regulations then the old man is concerned about financial regulations" (Bennett 77). " That "place," or refuge, can take the shape of many things: a cafe, the arms of a woman or "youth and confidence. ]" as if to mock the existence of religion. In the final paragraph of the story he dismisses his inability to sleep as "insomnia," but what is really bothering him is his "hyper-consciousness" of an empty meaningless existence (Benert 185). acters," "shows all the impatience of youth and an uncaring attitude towards the old man. When you delve into the layers of characterization and irony you begin to see the uplifting tone in the story. For them life has "no priori order or value system, [.
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Acceptance Essays
