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Setting in a clean well lighted place
The theme of life and death in literature
Setting in a clean well lighted place
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"A Clean Well-Lighted Place" shows use the contrast between young and old. The difference between a nice, bright café and the not so clean bar for a man to spend his long nights. In the short story by Ernest Hemingway, an old man is trying to have a drink at a café. One of the waiters is young and it anchus to go home to his wife, while the other waiter, an older man, understands the gentleman who is drinking. The old man in the café comes in often for drink. He tries to pass the night in the clean well-lighted place, where he "liked to sit late because he was deaf and now at night it was quiet and he felt the difference" (Hemingway 173). The young waiter does not realize the importance of the café to the old man.
The young waiter states that the old man has tried to commit suicide before. He cannot seem to figure why because "he had plenty of money" (Hemingway 173). For the young man does not see any other reason for someone to kill himself or herself for any other reason besides money. This old man has not been cared for. The only reason that the old man was not successful in the suicide was because his niece saved him in "fear for his soul." Not for love or because she valued him.
The young waiter thinks that the old man "has no regard for those that work" (Hemingway 174), knowing that he a lot of money. The old man is lonely unlike the young waiter who wanted to go home to his wife. The young waiter pours the drink carelessly with no regard for the old man not realizing the value of the café to the old man. The old man has nowhere to go after dark.
The older waiter can relate to this man, for he has nowhere to go after work. The waiter himself cannot find a clean well-lighted café of his own to pass the night. The old waiter is offended by how the young waiter has treated the old man. "Why didn't you let him stay and drink?"( Hemingway 174) the old waiter says. The old waiter tells the young waiter the he has `youth, confidence and a job, you have everything"(Hemingway 175).
Ludvigson imagines her parents are the man and woman in the painting and she creates a dialogue between them. "They sit in a bright café, discussing Hemingway and how this war will change them" (Ludvigson 1- 3). They seem to be suspended in the glow of the light from the diner and framed in a sheet of glass that divides them from the street. There is no rhyming, except between café and Hemingway, which establishes a cheery tone, despite the dark subject matter of war. During this defining time in America, the poem seems to be lighthearted and playful. "Their coffee's getting cold but they hardly notice. My mother's face is lit by ideas. My father's gestures are a Frenchman's" (Ludvigson 11-14). The rest of the imaginary conversation goes on about novelists and poets and they joke in a loving manner. "They decide, though the car is parked nearby, to walk the few blocks home, savoring the fragrant night, their being alone together" (Ludvigson 20-23). Her parents are depicted as equals and speak to each other as equals, unlike the other poems where the male is superior. Her parents seem to remain fully engaged in a conversation about what it means to be in America. Whatever the fascination is, these four people and a diner scene have led to the retelling of a possible storyline and the life these people
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.
The apartment is contrasted by both the bar and their new home. The bar is clearly seen as a symbol of the vices that keep us from taking hold of our dreams. In contrast, the new home is seen as a symbol of the fulfillment of those dreams. I am very pleased that the director was very thoughtful on navigating the restrictions that he faced in the use of different settings in the film to drive home the motifs that the original play alluded to so well.
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...
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
In Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, Jake Barnes is a lost man who wastes his life on drinking. Towards the beginning of the book Robert Cohn asks Jake, “Don’t you ever get the feeling that all your life is going by and you’re not taking advantage of it? Do you realize that you’ve lived nearly half the time you have to live already?” Jake weakly answers, “Yes, every once in a while.” The book focuses on the dissolution of the post-war generation and how they cannot find their place in life. Jake is an example of a person who had the freedom to choose his place but chose poorly.
The material objects that Hemingway uses to convey the theme are beer, the good and bad hillsides, and a railroad station between two tracks. The beer represents the couple’s, “the American” and “the girl’s”, usual routine activity they do together. This bothers the girl because “that’s all [they] do … look at things and try new drinks.” This shows that the girl is tired of doing the same thing and wants to do something different, like having a baby and a family, instead of fooling around all the time. She wants to stop being a girl and become a woman. Hemingway then presents the reader with two contrasting hills. One hill on one side of the station is dull, desolate, and barren; “it had no shade and no trees”, very desert like. However, the other hill on the other side of the station is beautiful, plentiful in nature, and had “fields of grain and tress along the banks of the Ebro River.” Also on each side of the station where each hill is, there is a train track. These objects are symbolic devices prepare the reader in realizing that the characters are in a place of decision. The railroad station is a place of decision where one must decide to go one way or the other. The t...
Ernest Hemingway does not feel the need to give much detail on the setting. The reader knows that it is late and that these men are in a café. The main character is sitting in the shadow and he is drinking brandy. Hemingway leaves out details from the setting but does make it clear that this café is, like the title suggest, clean and well-lighted. He only states important aspects of the setting demonstrating that details are nothing: nada. Through his writing Hemingway implies that this old man feels that little details in the world mean nothing. When the older waiter asks the younger waiter why this drunken man had tried to commit suicide a week before, the younger waiter simply answers “Nothing. He has plenty of money.” In the young waiters mind this old man has everything. Obviously, this old man feels that things like money are nothing and thus not worth living over. Ernest Hemingway, through the lack of deta...
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 ...
Ernest Hemingway's short story titled "A Clean Well-Lighted place" deals with the loneliness, isolation, and depression felt by many during the modernist period. The story takes place in a well lit café, occupied by two waiters (one old, and one young) and an old deaf man. This story is the perfect example of the modernist form because it questions the meaning of life. Joseph Gabriel, in is essay titled "The Logic of Confusion in: Hemingway's "A Clean well Lighted Place", believes that "the dominant visual image of the story is the radical contrast between the minute spot of light represented by the café and the infinite surrounding darkness outside."(Joseph Gabriel, The Logic of Confusion in: Hemingway's "A Clean well Lighted Place", Pg, 541) One can't help but compare the story to the image of moths att...
Colburn, William E. “Confusion in ‘A Clean, Well-Lighted Place’.” College English. 20.5 (1959): 241-242. JSTOR. Web. 8 Feb. 2014.
The young waiter seems selfish and inconsiderate of anyone else. In the beginning of the story, he's confused why the old man tried to kill himself. "He has plenty of money," he says, as if that's the only thing anyone needs for happiness. When the old man orders another drink, the younger waiter warns him that he'll get drunk, as if to waver his own responsibility rather than to warn the old man for his sake.
...ersation at a café during a crisis point in their relationship. After the couple got off the train, they decided that they should have something to drink when the man suggested they should perhaps order beer, emphasizing “Two big ones.” The couple could have ordered any drink, so it is important to pay keen attention to why the author, Hemingway, decided to incorporate alcohol into his short story. Maybe Hemingway wanted his readers to think that the couple was going through emotional problems and beer was the solution to help cope with them. As we see with this particular couple by reading the text, we begin to understand the woman depended on drinking to cope with her troubles. When the girl did not want to speak anymore to her partner, she asked the waitress for another beer. As we now know about Hemingway, such a mechanism relates to the way he lived his life.
Here in the caf sits a deaf, lonely, older man, who although is deaf can feel the difference that the night brings to the caf, a younger waiter, who believes people stay around the caf to make his life miserable, and a waiter who is a bit older and seems to understand that this place, the caf, is comforting. The older man spends his late nights in the caf, because at his home there is nobody, he is widowed. All he has is the comfort that the light inside the caf brings to him at night, and the appearance and thought of other human beings that may bring him. The old man is under the care of his niece, who last week had to cut him down from attempting to commit suicide. Why did he attempt to kill himself?
While we discussed “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place,” by Ernest Hemingway, I do not feel as though we talked about how to story was pointing out how was life means nothing. For example, the older waiter in the end makes this clear by stating, “It was all nothing and a man was nothing too,” (Hemingway pg. 154). Also when he says nada instead of the actual prayer Our Father, which to me means he is getting rid of the meaning of God and heaven entirely. In those statements he is just writing off the meaning of his life. He thinks he is nothing and living has truly no purpose in his life. Secondly, the younger waiter accelerates through life without batting an eye. He just wants to do things faster, so he doesn’t waste time in his already shortened