(Ernest Hemingway)

The Nothingness in Life Depicted in the Short

Story A Clean, Well-Lighted Place

A very simple story with simple setting, plot and characters, Hemingway implicitly made this short story become very meaningful. The meaning of life often becomes an interesting topic for people to talk about. Here, in the A Clean, Well-Lighted Place, Hemingway tries to pull it out through a different point of view of the characters, and he uses café as a symbol to make the setting of this story. Hemingway wrote three characters here: the Old Man, the Older Waiter and the Younger Waiter. Each of the character has different point of view about life and how they live it. The nothingness seem to be mostly shown from the symbol that Hemingway uses—The Café—and the way the older waiter responses to his conversation with the younger waiter.

The café represents an escaping place. The café where the Old Man drinks until late at night, and where the Older and Younger Waiters work, is a place which somewhat clean and well-lighted. It shows us that the light symbolizes something that will send away the darkness that the characters feel. When the Younger Waiter says that he wants to the Old Man to go home soon, for he wants to come home earlier so that he can go to bed with her wife, the Older Waiter says that the Old Man may be able to stay awhile longer, since it hasn’t 3 a.m. yet. There are other places open, like bodegas and bars, but they are just different. The places aren’t clean, and they aren’t well-lighted. The do not have that cleanness and light to send away the loneliness.

The Café as a Symbol

In the conversation between the Younger and Older Waiters, we can see that they have different point of view of life here. The Older says that there is no different between coming home at 3 a.m. or earlier, but the Younger says it different. He says he has a wife, and he wants to go to bed with her. He says the Old Man doesn’t have a wife, but the Older says he had a wife once. The Younger Waiter seems to have no idea that it may happen to him in his future—to be lonely. This place is the place where the Old Man can drink and send away his loneliness. The Older Waiter then goes to the bar after he close the place where he works that night.

The Older and Younger Waiters

However, he says that the bar is not clean, and he refuses to take one more glass when the barman offers him. He says “our nada who art in nada” rather than “our God who art in heaven”. In the last paragraph, he says that it may be just him having insomnia. This expression shows the nothingness that he feels towards the life, and how it will be unimportant to think about the meaning of life further.

Symbolizes by a café, Hemingway wants to show a place for the people who think that this life is nothingness, find a “home”. A place where they can escape from the “darkness” with the light from the place. Meanwhile, not all of the characters in this short story think that this world is full of nothingness. The Younger Waiter is the only character here that still has a “dream” for his life. The Old Man and the Older Waiter, which seems to be the main character here think that there is no use think about the meaning of life because it is only a nothingness.