“A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” takes place in a café, revealing a simple conversation between a young and an older waiter regarding a regular old client. We learn the characteristics of those waiters through their conversations. One is young, energetic, confident, and very reluctant. While in comparison the other is an old, but wise, experienced, and sympathetic barman. As the story progresses, it reveals the message it is trying to get across its reader. The story is conveying how an old person differs as they age compared to a young person, through the different characters. As well as how a certain place is viewed by a certain person and has a different meaning to them.
Throughout different stages of our lives, we greatly change as a person.
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To one it is simply a place they reside in, they either love it or hate it. To another home is the place they hold dear, because that’s where their family is, that is where they grew up, that is where they find comfort. And most important of all, home is where one let themselves be free and won’t be judged. At the same time home can also be a disaster for another, such as residing with perhaps an abusive father or mother, or simply not being able to commit to that place. As I have mentioned earlier, certain places mean differently to a certain person, as we are all unique. In this short story, the author depicts this situation with the characters. Normally, someone would not consider hanging out at a café at one in the morning comfortable, especially with strangers. It is not safe, anything can happen, yet the old client and the barman found that café serene. It comforted them, gave them a place to escape their sleeping problems, or “insomnia,” as the old barman later assumes. Perhaps both those old man saw the café as their own house, since they had no one to go back to at their own house. The story further supports my point when it reveals that the old client has a good sum of money, therefore one can assume the old client maybe has a beautiful house. Yet he preferred a café at midnight, middle of nowhere with strangers. To others the café might be simply a place to do business. Though those old men found peace and comfort at that place, it held a special meaning to their
The tone of the story is one of dread, sadness, and nervousness. The narrator in the story is a sad, paranoid and nervous character. His life seems to not be going that well, because he is living with the old man. The story doesn’t go into why the narrator was living there, but if you have a roommate your finances may be frayed.
Through symbolism the author shows us how Neddy goes from social drinking to destitution. Each stop at a neighbor’s pool gets progressively harder, but he keeps on. Neddy ignores these signs and becomes beaten and finally alone. This truly is a sad journey of a man who destroys himself through alcohol. As the story ends, Neddy realizes that he is alone. Will he change? Get help for his alcoholism? The author leaves us hanging, but at this point we know he is alone, everyone has abandoned him. Neddy has followed the stereotypical footsteps of an alcoholic.
The opening paragraph of the story contains a metaphorical passage: "I stared at it in the swinging light of the subway car, and in the faces and bodies of the people, and in my own face, trapped in the darkness which roared outside"(349). This reference is significant because it is a contrast to the dismal society that the narrator and his brother Sonny live in. The darkness is the portrayal of the community of Harlem that is trapped, in their surroundings by physical, economic, and social barriers. The obvious nature of darkness has overcome the occupants of the Harlem community. The narrator, an algebra teacher, observes a depressing similarity between his students and his brother, Sonny. This is true because the narrator is fearful for his students falling into a life of crime and drugs, as did his brother. The narrator notes that the cruel realities of the streets have taken away the possible light from the lives of his brother and his students. The narrator makes an insightful connection between the darkness that Sonny faced and the darkness that the young boys are presently facing. This is illustrated in the following quote:
In Hemingway’s “A Clean Well-Lighted Place”, the old wealthy man keeps ordering drinks. One of the employees of that restaurant mention...
The story of the “Encounter” expresses different images of light and dark. Thesituation of the image of the old man the two young boys come across on their journey. The adventure of the young boys leads to some confusion to what’s happening throughout their adventures. The boys were talking “with Leo Dillon and a boy named Mahony I planned a day’s miching”(13). The boys came up with plans to get out of school for their adventure. The boys headed out towards their destination; throughout their adventure they come across uncertainties. The boys come across the world that’s different than what they are used to, such as the old man. The old man seems very confusing for the young boys; the old man talks about young girls saying, “what nice soft hair they had and how soft their hands were and how all girls were not so good as they seemed to be if one only knew” (18). The boys were confused with the statements the old man was saying. Mahony said “he’s a queer old josser” (18). The images of the old man were very negative towards the boys adventure. ...
Voskuil writes, “His mother, distracted, had shut off the floodlights and he did not protest against the dark.” (468). The dark can mean many things symbolically, however for Gary it is a quiet place to sit and think about everything that happened that day. It had been a long sad day for everyone at the beach and Gary needed time to absorb everything he had seen and heard earlier. The dark can symbolize saddens or loss, or even loneliness. For Gary this night holds all of this. The sadness of losing the young boy to the currents of the ocean, the loss the family and friends of the boy feel, and the sadness they feel as well. Gary sits in the dark drinking his single malt because he does not mind being reminded of the events that occurred earlier that day, this is a way that lets him think it through for
Goodness verses evil is how most novels portray light verses dark. Marilynne Robinson challenges this idea in her novel Housekeeping by changing the roles of light and dark. Light, in her novel, represents a normal life as Lucille, the protagonist’s sister, chooses to endorse. Darkness is portrayed as a source of enlightenment and a path to an abnormal life which Ruth, the protagonist, and Sylvie, the protagonist’s aunt, embrace. In the novel Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson, the main characters, Ruth and Lucille, have to choose their lifestyle as a normal one in the light, or one that is unique in the dark.
The author then uses darkness to describe the faces of the adults on Sunday evenings after dinner when everyone is relaxing with their own thought's. "For a moment nobody's talking but every face looks darkening, like the sky outside...The silence, the darkness coming and the darkness in the faces frighten the child obscurel...
	Lastly, there is the old waiter. He is some where around the age of the old man that sat at the table. He definitely feels for the man at the table because he knows what it is like to be old and lonely. The waiter says, "I am of those who like to stay late at the café, with all those who do not want to go to bed. With all those who need a light for the night." The waiter knows that the café/bar is a very nice place for people at night, especially the old, because it is clean and well lit. He says, "Each night I am reluctant to close up because there may be someone who needs the café.
From mapping it is clear that the night represents death by meeting night, the narrator is saying that he encounters death. Thus, the idea of death is reinforced by the conceptual metaphor A LIFETIME IS A DAY and activates the general metaphor DEATH IS A JOURNEY TO A FINAL DESTINATION.
The narrator wrestles with conflicting feelings of responsibility to the old man and feelings of ridding his life of the man's "Evil Eye" (34). Although afflicted with overriding fear and derangement, the narrator still acts with quasi-allegiance toward the old man; however, his kindness may stem more from protecting himself from suspicion of watching the old man every night than from genuine compassion for the old man.
The man, whose face we cannot see, is almost completely hidden in the dark shadows. Like the bird, this “night hawk” is camouflaged by the low light and shadows in such a way that he almost vanishes into the night. With his distance from the couple, the impression is that the man is mysterious, bad or even sinister. With the absence of a door, to the outside, the people seem to be trapped or isolated. The other buildings and sidewalks are also examples of subordination by the artist, de-emphasizing the importance of the surroundings so that the diner becomes the strongest focal point in the
At first glance “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” by Ernest Hemingway is an unemotional, unfinished and simplistic narration of two waiters and an old man. However, when readers dig a little deeper for insight, they can truly see how meaningful this story actually is as Hemingway captures the source and essence of nihilistic thought, in a time of moral and religious confusion after the World War I. The post World War thinking of Hemingway and the Lost Generation in Paris was expressed and represented through his ideas, which were influenced by the ordeals of war. Due to Hemingway’s disturbing and unsettling experiences while serving in the military, he portrays the idea that all humans await an inevitable fate of eternal nothingness and everything that we value is worthless. He states that all humans will die alone and will be “in despair” about “nothing” (Hemingway 494), also that people will look for a “calm and pleasant café” (Hemingway 496) to escape from his misery. Hemingway goes on to say “[Life is] all a nothing, and a man [is] nothing too” (Hemingway, 496), undoubtedly abolishing any existence of a higher being. After observing the actions of individuals in the past three decades, Hemingway attempts to elaborate in “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” that life is about gradual despair and not continual enlightenment and that we all will eventually fade into “nada” (Hemingway 497).
In “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place”, an old man visits the café on a regular basis and drinks heavily. He is sometimes known to get drunk and leave without paying. The older and younger waiter talk about the old man and have very different opinions of the type of life he is living. The older waiter feels very sympathetic for the old man and his need to keep the café open till the old man leaves. The...
The manager is put into the novel to show how the adaptation to uncivilized life can be very costly, while the poem exemplifies on that idea and that these “hollow men” are missing something vital to life. However both characters express the same uncaring personality, despite the fact that they unappreciated meaning and initiative, they seem to embrace that fact that everything happens for a reason and they accept it for the way it is.