A Clean, Well-Lighted Place by Ernest Hemingway, Essay Example

“’I am of those who like to stay late at the café,’ the older waiter said… ‘With all those who need a light for the night’” (Hemingway, 2013, p. 48). In this blunt and cynical statement, the older waiter in Hemingway’s “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” affirms his profound understanding of both life and his role within it. The story presents no joy and there is no sense of any reason to embrace life. At the same time, it reveals the value of serving others who rely on the familiar. If the setting is bleak, a kind of hope or promise is upheld through this uneventful and ordinary truth. In a lonely world lacking in faith and purpose, a man must turn to a sense of community, the simplicity of a quality refuge, and daily rituals to find meaning and comfort and to continue to choose to survive.

The story’s scenario is not complex; an older and younger waiter deal with a regular old customer who sometimes presents problems, and the two also prepare to end the evening’s work. The presence of the customer, however, triggers an exchange between the waiters in which their individual characters and points of view are exposed. The younger waiter is, true to youth, impatient and insistent upon the value and potential of his own life. The older waiter is different. He does not judge the drunken customer as his partner does, and he sees through this customer how his own life is directed, in terms of providing of service and comfort in an attractive setting.  This stark difference between the waiters is deliberate: “The opposites describe the world the story takes place in; they provide a sense of totality” (Hemingway, 2001). After the young waiter leaves and the older waiter closes the café, the latter indulges in nihilistic thinking, viewing the world as empty: “It was all a nothing and a man was nothing too” (Hemingway, 2013, p. 48). The story concludes with him lingering by the steaming coffee machine, and the reader perceives this state of mind as contrasting the now-absent young man’s bravado.

Importantly, however, the older waiter is smiling when the story ends. This is critical in understanding the central theme. If the story is plain and cynical, there is an underlying idea that is profound and unexpectedly comforting. As conveyed by the older waiter and by what is revealed about the customer, life is generally meaningless. Faith and purpose are irrelevant concepts in a world where, as is indicated by the customer’s history, even an attempt to end one’s life is prevented. Nonetheless, a man carries on to do what he can, and it is seen that even in the nothingness there is a cause for living and a core of need guiding a man. This is the truth ultimately realized and accepted by the older waiter, and it is what accounts for his smile at the conclusion, which seems to reflect a resignation not entirely nihilistic or bleak.

The old patron’s getting drunk is a powerful catalyst for the waiters’ conversation exposing the theme. His having surrendered and accepted unhappiness is evident in one interaction with the young waiter. The young waiter brings brandy and, referring to the old man’s recent suicide attempt, is cruel: “Here, suicide is discussed casually, carelessly. This adds power to the subject matter” (Hemingway, 2001).  Power is also added to character, as the young man takes advantage of the patron’s inability to hear: “’You should have killed yourself last week,’ he said to the deaf man. The old man motioned with his finger. ‘A little more,’ he said” (Hemingway, 2013, p. 48). What is extraordinary here is how the old customer’s deafness seems to empower his lack of interest in life and the world. A waiter may say anything to him; it does not matter because only the brandy and the setting have meaning or offer some distraction. Ironically, he cannot know how his presence triggers the exchange between the waiters, just as it is not likely that he would care.

On one level, this quality of loneliness and uncaring in the customer is mirrored in the older waiter, but there is an important difference. Certainly, there is no optimism in the older waiter, and virtually everything he says and thinks goes to a dismissal of life as pointless and unrewarding. Moreover: “The despair of the old man is universal despair; the old man’s condition is everyone’s condition” (Heminway, 2001), so the older waiter mirror’s that patron’s hopelessness. As the younger waiter asserts the quality of his life as what he desires, for example, the older waiter corroborates the view and emphasizes his own sorrow: “’You have youth, confidence, and a job,’ the older waiter said. ‘You have everything’” (Hemingway, 2013, p. 48). At the same time, the reader can almost hear the older waiter’s tone as ironic and as reflecting a kind of pity for the other’s ignorance and innocence. However, and while the older waiter seems to share the patron’s cynicism and awareness of life’s meaninglessness, he also places a kind of faith in his role at the café and the superior quality of the setting. These things are not powerful aspects of life as rich and meaningful, but, to this character, they provide a vitally needed grounding. They save him from the despair driving the patron to drunkenness and thoughts of suicide. Consequently, the older waiter’s trust in the value of a clean and comfortable setting¾one in which people like himself serve¾provides him with a purpose lacking in the patron.

Also, the role of that setting is an active presence and a character in itself.  The café has far more meaning for the older waiter than it does for the younger waiter, who appears to see it only as a job. The young waiter is eager to go home to his wife, but the older waiter has nothing waiting for him and he cannot understand the other’s motives in hurrying the patron out: “’Why didn’t you let him stay and drink?’ the unhurried waiter asked. They were putting up the shutters. ‘It is not half-past two’” (Hemingway, 2013, p. 48). This emphasizes how, for the older waiter, the café is a kind of home.  It is a feeling evidently shared by the patron. The cafe offers sanctuary in the form of cleanliness, service, and respectability. It is a vitally needed “way station” of human existence, which gives it the quality of an active presence or character.

Lastly, it is easy to think of the negativity of the older man’s thoughts as mocking faith, but this ignores a more fundamental reality. There is certainly an element of mockery in the expression of the thinking: “Our nada who art in nada, nada be thy name thy kingdom nada thy will be nada in nada as it is in nada” (Hemingway, 2013, p. 48). What is actually occurring here, however, is an affirmation of a different faith. For the older waiter, trust in God and hopes for happiness are delusional. It is his faith in the café and its purpose that is real, and it is this that causes him to smile at the story’s close.

Ultimately, then, Hemingway reveals his underlying theme in the title of “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place.” Employing three characters and presenting a scene lacking in drama, there is still the reality of a “cynical faith.” A patron comes by the café to get drunk and step away from his despairing life, a young waiter exhibits all the optimism and arrogance of youth, and an older waiter takes everything in. This man concludes that, even if life and faith are meaningless, men may create meaning through addressing the emptiness and providing sanctuary. The message is clear: in a lonely world lacking in faith and purpose, a man must turn to a sense of community, the simplicity of a quality refuge, and daily rituals to find meaning and comfort and to continue to choose to survive.

Reference

Hemingway, E. (2001). A Clean, Well-Lighted Place. Literary Cavalcade,
54(1), 17.  Retrieved 14 Oct. 2015 from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx? direct=true&db=a9h&AN=5124925&sit > e=ehost-live&scope=site

Hemingway, E. (2013). A Clean, Well-Lighted Place. In X. J. Kennedy & D. Gioa (Eds.), The Literature Collection: An e-text [VitalSource digital version] (p. 48). Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.