Life sucks, does it not? Life is nothing and everything in life is meaningless. Perhaps there are a few things that can distract the mind and guard from the inadequacies of life, but in the end all fades away. Nothing lasts forever. While all the somethings are dying and fading, nothing is still there. Sure, one can search for meaning and think happy thoughts, but throughout the struggle everyone is alone and slowly spiraling down the path to despair. In “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place,” Hemingway uses the concept of nada, characterization, and the setting to emphasize the idea of human life being full of nothing.
To understand the story, one must understand that nothing is actually something (Benson 24). Hemingway substitutes the word nada, a Spanish translation for nothing, which is one-word description for both a lack of meaning and for all the irrational forces that infringe upon the human self (Hoffman 31). Some live in Nada and never know it but eventually some reach a dreadful realization and they fear that “it was all a nothing and a man was nothing too” (Hemingway 3). Everything is nothing and nothing is everything as this life holds no true meaning for mankind to comprehend.
Yet still there are men who realize Nada and become sleepless in their unceasing search for meaning (Warren 20), although “it is probably only insomnia; many must have it” (Hemingway 4). These men create a dilemma in which they wish for meaning but live in a world of spiritual emptiness (Bache 22). Yet if there be meaning to discover, these men can find it, for only through the awareness of nothing or non-meaning can meaning be created (Benson 25). To find something, man must confront and realize the presence of nothing, but such a rea...
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...way 3) for the place to give hope for meaning and provide a refuge for when loneliness is overbearing. Thus by maintaining a sense of cleanliness and order, the heroes of life achieve dignity, the dignity that keeps them alive (Warren 21).
Life sucks, does it not? The nothingness of everything is almost too much to bear. Nothing one does can save oneself. All is hopeless and everyone must reach a bitter end. All friendship is feigning; most loving mere folly and loneliness shall consume everything. However, there is a way to escape, a pathway to salvation. By acting with perhaps unrecognized courage, serving each other, bringing the world to full flower, and thereby helping in the creation of things more wonderful and more unimagined than ever before, life can have meaning and purpose. That meaning can be found late at night in a clean, well-lighted place.
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.
...that is only one way. There are many ways. We choose."14 Naslund suggests that instead of searching for meaning and comfort in the undulating restless sea, we can find meaning on land, in people, in the space between people, in touch. Human touch fills the absence of meaning.
In Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl utilizes his nightmarish experiences as a prisoner in a concentration camp to develop his philosophical and psychological theory, logotherapy. A significantly existential theory, logotherapy deals primarily with the importance meaning in life. Frankl notes meaning’s ability to “differ from man to man, and from moment to moment” (77). In other words, he posits the individuality of meaning and presents it as unique to each person. Additionally, Frankl establishes the significant importance of meaning to a person’s survival.
This novel brings to mind many hard issues that face the individual within mankind. Hemingway shapes his characters and their actions to show the beliefs of those that follow the existentialist philosophy. It is a novel of the struggles of one man to overcome the hardships he faces in this world. Its' depiction of humankind is both ironic and triumphant. Just as the Book of Ecclesiastes explains that man's comprehension is limited by his understanding of the magnitude of time and space so does The Sun Also Rises show us the smallness of humanity in reference to the universe.
Throughout the 20th century there were many influential pieces of literature that would not only tell a story or teach a lesson, but also let the reader into the author’s world. Allowing the reader to view both the positives and negatives in an author. Ernest Hemingway was one of these influential authors. Suffering through most of his life due to a disturbingly scarring childhood, he expresses his intense mental and emotional insecurities through subtle metaphors that bluntly show problems with commitment to women and proving his masculinity to others.
With different historical and personal experiences, Hemingway holds the view that all the people end up in this existential angst and incertainty about the existence or meaning of life, while Carver illustrates the establishment and transformation of self-awareness with connection to the world in promoting the significance of life and human existence.
Hemingway’s dialogue reveals the difficult nature of a relationship between a man and a woman, as it focusses on incompatibility of their relationship and their different values on abortion. The reader witnesses a deep conflict between them on the issue as the decision will affect both their relationship and the rest of their lives.
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
"People say that what we're all seeking is a meaning for life. I don't think that's what we're really seeking. I think that what we're seeking is an experience of being alive...." Joseph Campbell made this comment on the search for meaning common to every man's life. His statement implies that what we seem bent on finding is that higher spark for which we would all be willing to live or die; we look for some key equation through which we might tie all of the experiences of our life and feel the satisfaction of action toward a goal, rather than the emptiness which sometimes consumes the activities of our existence. He states, however, that we will never find some great pure meaning behind everything, because there is none. What there is to be found, however, is the life itself. We seek to find meaning so that emptiness will not pervade our every thought, our every deed, with the coldness of reality as the unemotional eye chooses to see it. Without color, without joy, without future, reality untouched by hope is an icy thing to view; we have no desire to see it that way. We forget, however, that the higher meaning might be found in existence itself. The joy of life and the experience of living are what make up true meaning, as the swirl of atoms guided by chaotic chance in which we find our existence has no meaning outside itself.
Hemingway joined the “Lost Generation” crowd during his hardships. During these years people spent time aimlessly walking around. They didn’t think there was a purpose to their lives. In the book, the characters wandered together through an “endless, drunken procession of parties, cafes, and sexual affairs,” in a desperate search for meaning to their lives. Some of the story Jake tells the reader lies between the lines in the book, possibly symbolizing the absence of meaning in the characters’ lives.
He replies by explaining yet again that he would like to go home because he is not lonely like the old man and would like to see his wife.... ... middle of paper ... ... Hemingway also seems to focus on the feeling of nothingness, not nothingness itself.
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 ...
In a symbolic reading, the opening paragraph describes the crisis that exists in the marriage of the couple. In other words, the description of the bad weather, of the "empty square"[1](l.10) and of their isolation, reflects this conflict and also sets the negative mood. In fact, since the beginning, Ernest Hemingway insists on the isolation of the couple that "does not know any of the people they passed" (ll.1-2) and are "only two Americans"(l.1). Here it is interesting to notice that they are isolated from the outside world but also from each other. There is no communication and they have no contact, they are distant from each other.
The Sun Also Rises is Hemingway’s first momentous literary work. It is a story about the lives of a number of Americans who were living in Europe after World War I. An American World War I expatriate and journalist, Jake Barnes, tell the novel’s storyline. The themes that are depicted by Hemingway in this novel include purposelessness of the ‘Lost Generation’, masculine insecurity, communication breakdown, binge alcohol consumption, and fake friendships. Nonetheless, as essential as the premise and the context of the novel are, the characters are the heart and soul of the Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises
What is the meaning of life? What is the point of living if we all eventually die? Philosophers have come up with many different theories regarding this subject. However, there remains a lack of any agreed upon theory for the meaning of life. Thomas Nagel and Harry Frankfurt are two philosophers who have offered their opinions on this issue. In his book called What Does it All Mean?, Nagel distinguishes between meaning within a life and the meaning of life as a whole. The differences between the two create a discrepancy that does not provide a clear conclusion which attributes meaning to our lives. On the other hand, in his book called The Reasons of Love, Frankfurt argues that love is the key to a meaningful life. He describes the idea of self-love, the purest form of love that commits us to finding meaning in our lives. This paper discusses Nagel’s distinction between the two types of meaningfulness, Frankfurt’s analysis of the love-meaning connection, and my argument that Frankfurt’s point of view addresses Nagel’s meaning within a life but not meaning of life as a whole. Then, the paper concludes with my belief that the search for the meaning of life is the meaning of life itself.