The Pedestrian 'And A Clean, Well-Lighted Place'

Being different often leads to loneliness, and loneliness often leads to despair. These qualities cause some to become outsiders, therefore they view certain things in alternative ways. Both short stories, “The Pedestrian” by Ray Bradbury and “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” by Ernest Hemingway, project the universal theme of character desolation and how this occurs for the characters due to the ignorance of the society around them.
In “The Pedestrian” the main character, Leonard Mead, lives in a society where everyone is too captivated with their television screens to read, write, go outside, or have human interactions. However, Leonard is different; he walks alone through the streets still desperately trying to hold onto joys of life before technology had taken over. Leonard was a writer, but society has forgotten about him and everything his profession entitled. Human contact has disintegrated, “The tombs, ill-lit by television light, where the people sat like the dead, the gray or multicolored lights touching their

faces, but never really touching them” and Leonard has been left alone (Bradbury 175). Society’s ignorance for anything but their television screen led Leonard to be viewed as a strange outsider from the rest of the world.
The story, “A Clean Well-Lighted Place”, the old man and the old waiter are lonely people, unlike the younger waiter.

The old man and old waiter are not young and have no one to go home to at night, so they stay at the cafe into the late hours of the night, because it is a comforting to be in that environment surrounded by others. The young waiter represents the “society” that does not understand the other two men. He has a wife to go home to, therefore he is ignorant to the nothingness that the old man and old waiter live with. The old waiter says, “Each night I am reluctant to close up because there may be someone who needs the cafe” (Hemingway 5). The old waiter can relate to anyone who may need the clean, well-lit cafe at night instead of going to a cold, dirty bar. The cafe keeps them from feeling the despair that is accompanied by the loneliness. When the young waiter closes the cafe, this desolation lingers with the old man and old

waiter.
Both stories observe the isolation of the main characters as a result of the ignorance of the other characters in the stories. Leonard is unconventional compared to the technologically dependent world, and the old man and old waiter do not have anyone to make life worth living; they are chained to “nothingness”. The technological people in “The Pedestrian” are confused and frightened by Leonard because his values are different. Just as the young waiter in “A Clean Well-Lighted Place” has no patience for the men who wish to stay at the cafe all night, because they are not young and do not have anyone to go home to.
The similar, universal theme that is evident in the short stories is that despair is caused by loneliness, which is escalated by the lack of understanding of others. Leonard Mead, the old man, and the old waiter do not have any human connection to fill their lonely sorrows. They are seen as unusual to others in their societies. For these reasons, the similar comparison of themes between “The Pedestrian” and “A Clean Well-Lighted Place” are easily perceptible when looking at the stories from an in-depth perspective.