A Clean, Well-Lighted Place Essay

The short story A Clean, Well-Lighted Place written by Ernest Hemingway in 1926 is set in a café where a deaf old man sits, drinking his brandy. While he drinks, two waiters— one who is young and the other who is about the same age as the deaf old man— are watching him. It is already late and the only customer left is the deaf old man. The young waiter, who is very impatient, wants the old man to leave so he can go home to his wife. As he is very irritated with staying at work that late, he talks about how the old man tried to commit suicide by hanging himself. His niece cut him down; that is the reason why he is alive. The old man asks for another brandy and the young waiter is annoyed so he ends up insulting the deaf man— that he should have successfully killed himself. The older waiter, who is unhurried to leave and is more sympathetic than the other waiter, realizes that the deaf old man is just lonely. When the deaf old man asks for another glass of brandy, the hurried waiter decided that he should make him go home. After the old man leaves,
“It was only that and light was all it needed and a certain cleanness and order. Some lived in it and never felt it but he knew it was all nada y pues nada y nada y pues nada…” (qtd. in Daley 225). The apparent dark theme of the story uses “a clean, well-lighted place,” which is a café, as a metaphor for temporary comfort to people who experience existential depression. The nothingness they feel engulfs them in a dark place, and the only way to suppress that sadness is to find a “clean, well-lighted place.” Looking at the story as a whole, it might also mean that the two depressed characters are only enjoying the comfort of a “clean, well-lighted place” while waiting for the end of nada— their