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literature theme of ernest hemingway
literature theme of ernest hemingway
literature theme of ernest hemingway
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There is a common exercise to evaluate one’s outlook on life: take a glass, fill it halfway and ask yourself, “Is this glass half empty or half full?” Decide on either one depending on how you see it, either half empty (hopelessness) or half full (optimism). We all see the centered brim of water differently based on our own personal circumstances. The old man in “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” would see the glass as half empty. Why? Emptiness is what fills his heart. There’s no gratification in having “plenty of money” and a family, but he finds indulgence in emptying a literal glass of brandy every night somewhere he finds safe, like the well-lit café (167). Even though the story is never clear about why this man is so distraught, the reader is able to understand how he is unable to leave the café. The same theme applies for the two waiters serving him – one has a life to live with his wife, and the other lacks confidence and is one to “stay late at the café”. One has found life, and the other has a lack of confidence and nothing to be proud of. Hemingway develops external symbolism through the setting in “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” like purity and light/ darkness, and also a contrasting theme of lifelong fulfillment and temporary fulfillment.
This café, possibly somewhere in Spain, is described as a place where those “who do not want to go to bed” and those “who need a light for the night” are welcome (169). Instead of wallowing in pitiful circumstance at home, those who need hope are those that come to the café, as this place depicts a safe haven for the empty and gives hope to the hopeless, further exemplifying Hemingway’s contrast of faith and discouragement in the story. Even as the two waiters converse, the reader sees th...
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... short story and deliver a different outlook on life, which is one that each character seemed to have as “Hemingway’s style of writing brings a hard-bitten realism to American fiction” quotes an outside source. The modernism in “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” is the old man continually searching for fulfillment but only receiving temporary gratification, which is so prevalent in today’s society.
Works Cited
Kennedy, X. J., and Dana Gioia. ""A Clean, Well-Lighted Place"" Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing. 12th ed. Vol. 1. New York: Pearson Longman, 2007. 167-70. Print.
Bassett, Olena. "A Clean Well-Lighted Place." A Clean Well-Lighted Place: The Revelation of Nada. Lonestar College System, 19 Aug. 2013. Web. 6 Feb. 2014.
Thornhill, Matthew. "ENGL112." : Ernest Hemingway. Http://www.blogspot.com, 15 Feb. 2013. Web. 12 Feb. 2014.
The main focus of A Clean, Well-Lighted Place is on the pain of old age suffered by a man that we meet in a cafe late one night. Hemingway contrasts light and dark to show the difference between this man and the young people around him, and uses his deafness as an image of his separation from the rest of the world.
In Hemingway's short story there are three characters, two waiters and their customer. Of these three, two are older men who are experiencing extreme loneliness. The customer sits alone drinking his glasses of brandy slowly, and very carefully, peacefully becoming drunk. While he is meticulously drinking his alcohol, the two waiters talk about him. They discuss his suicide attempt of the week past. The younger waiter doesn't seem to understand why a man with money would try to end his life. Although the older waiter seems to have an insight into the customer's reason, he doesn't share this with the younger one. He seems to know why this deaf old man is so depressed, and sits there alone and silent. When the younger waiter rushes the customer, the older waiter objects. He knows what it is like to go home to emptiness at night, while the younger man goes home to his wife. The older waiter remarks on the differences between him and his younger companion when he says, "I have never had confidence and I am not young.&qu...
...X. J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama, 8th Ed., edited by Joseph Terry. New York: Longman, 2002.
One observation that can be made on Hemingway’s narrative technique as shown in his short stories is his clipped, spare style, which aims to produce a sense of objectivity through highly selected details. Hemingway refuses to romanticize his characters. Being “tough” people, such as boxers, bullfighters, gangsters, and soldiers, they are depicted as leading a life more or less without thought. The world is full of s...
of the world. Yet, there would come the day when he would be known as
Early on, Hemingway describes that he was “always hungry with the walking and the cold and the working” (22). While spending the day with his wife at the horse races, Hemingway wants to “go to a wonderful place and have a truly grand dinner” (47). The two of them head to Michaud’s, a finer restaurant. Though Hemingway debates whether he is truly hungry in the simple sense or in a deeper way, he decides that he is hungry in the simple sense, and they have a “wonderful meal” at Michaud’s (49). There is some sort of practicality of being hungry as Hemingway argues that “in Paris, then, you could live very well on almost nothing and by skipping meals occasionally and never buying any new clothes, you could save and have luxuries” (83), as though, it is more important to have “luxuries” than it is to have money for meals. This necessity for hunger, is characterized better through the methaporhical meaning in A Moveable
We notice, right from the beginning of his life, that Ernest Hemingway was confronted to two opposite ways of thinking, the Manly way, and the Woman way. This will be an important point in his writing and in his personal life, he will show a great interest in this opposition of thinking. In this short story, Hemingway uses simple words, which turn out to become a complex analysis of the male and female minds. With this style of writing, he will show us how different the two sexes’ minds work, by confronting them to each other in a way that we can easily capture their different ways of working. The scene in which the characters are set in is simple, and by the use of the simplicity of the words and of the setting, he is able to put us in-front of this dilemma, he will put us in front of a situation, and we will see it in both sexes point of view, which will lead us to the fundamental question, why are our minds so different?
Ernest Hemingway and Raymond Carver are two of the most influential authors of American literature. Carver’s literary works are often considered to have a close connection to Hemingway’s, because of their similar writing styles, such as simplicity and clarity (Mclnerney, 1989). However, though their works share the same aesthetic feature, their works convey fairly different philosophical inquiry on values of faith and existence. Ernest Hemingway’s A Clean, Well-lighted Place and Carver’s Cathedral are two works with distinctive views on questioning the life and manhood.
Ernest Hemingway is known as one of the best writers of our time. He has a unique writing style in which he manipulates the English language to use the minimum amount of words and maximize the impression on the reader. A Clean, Well-Lighted Place is a prime example of this. Here, Ernest Hemingway uses his writing style to reinforce the theme of “Nada”. The setting is simple, the characters are plain, and the dialogues among them are short and to the point. It is with the absence of similes and metaphors that the reader is able to appreciate the work for what it is.
Hemingway packed plenty of theme, symbolism, and overall meaning into this short story. However, the story would not have been nearly as meaningful had it been written from another point of view.
Hemingway has created a situation where she is forced to depend on him because she is a young, immature, girl in an adult situation. It is when the American tells jig that “we will be fine afterward. Just like we were before, it is the only thing that bothers us. It’s the only thing that’s made us unhappy” that she realizes nothing will ever be the same no matter what he says. During one discussion she says “we could have everything” the man agrees, then she says “no we can’t it isn’t ours anymore and once they take it away, you can never get it back.” He says “But they haven’t taken it away” and her response is “we’ll wait and see.” The American doesn’t realize that at this point she has discovered that if he cannot love her and be happy while she is pregnant how he will ever truly love her as much as she loves him. According to Robert Barron many critics believe that the couple’s relationship has a bleak and ultimately poor ending (Barron). The older waiter in “A clean, Well-Lighted Place” is dealing with a similar situation when a wealthy old man who is a regular at the café he works at comes in after a failed suicide
When a writer picks up their pen and paper, begins one of the most personal and cathartic experiences in their lives, and forms this creation, this seemingly incoherent sets of words and phrases that, read without any critical thinking, any form of analysis or reflexion, can be easily misconstrued as worthless or empty. When one reads an author’s work, in any shape or form, what floats off of the ink of the paper and implants itself in our minds is the author’s personality, their style. Reading any of the greats, many would be able to spot the minute details that separates each author from another; whether it be their use of dialogue, their complex descriptions, their syntax, or their tone. When reading an excerpt of Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast one could easily dissect the work, pick apart each significant moment from Hemingway’s life and analyze it in order to form their own idea of the author’s voice, of his identity. Ernest Hemingway’s writing immediately comes across as rather familiar in one sense. His vocabulary is not all that complicated, his layout is rather straightforward, and it is presented in a simplistic form. While he may meander into seemingly unnecessary detail, his work can be easily read. It is when one looks deeper into the work, examines the techniques Hemingway uses to create this comfortable aura surrounding his body of work, that one begins to lift much more complex thoughts and ideas. Hemingway’s tone is stark, unsympathetic, his details are precise and explored in depth, and he organizes his thoughts with clarity and focus. All of this is presented in A Moveable Feast with expertise every writer dreams to achieve. While Hemingway’s style may seem simplistic on the surface, what lies below is a layered...
Ernest Hemingway was a man whose writing could be summed up as minimalistic and dynamic. While his stories at first glance seem simple, they are deceptively so. He wrote sharp, deliberate dialogue with exact descriptions of places and things. A postmodernist icon, Hemingway broke chronology in his stories and nudged towards the idea of multiple truths. In his story, "In Another Country" he uses both of these postmodern techniques. By effectively using fewer words than his contemporaries to deliver works that resonated stronger with his audience, Ernest Hemmingway earned his place as one of the great postmodernists of the twentieth century.
Through the characters' dialogue, Hemingway explores the emptiness generated by pleasure-seeking actions. Throughout the beginning of the story, Hemingway describes the trivial topics that the two characters discuss. The debate about the life-changing issue of the woman's ...
Every work in literature is open to interpretation, and every person is entitled to their opinion. In a story shorter than 1,500 words, less than that of this paper, Ernest Hemingway’s A Clean, Well-Lighted Place has garnered serious debate and criticism. Written and published in 1933, Hemingway’s story containing a theme about nothing in several contexts has definitely given many critics something to talk about, but not about the usual theme, irony, or symbolism. For the past 55 years, the critics continue to debate the conflicting dialogue between the two main characters, and whether the inconsistency was intended by Hemingway or a mistake by the original typesetter.