A Well-Lighted Place Essay

In the story A Well-Lighted Place by Ernest Hemingway, he uses very simple dialogue but it has a deeper meaning. For example when he says nothing, it doesn’t just mean nothing it means nothing in a deeper way. In the story Hemingway shows the dialogue between an older waiter and a younger waiter at their work, a cafe. There was a deaf old man sitting at the cafe a bit drunk drinking his feelings away. The waiters were talking about him and how he tried to commit suicide by hanging himself but his niece cut him down. The old man kept wanting more drinks but the young waiter was getting irritated, he told him he should have died the night he tried too but the old man couldn’t hear him and just saw him pouring him more brandy. The waiters continued

I'm not lonely. I have a wife waiting in bed for me.” The younger waiter didn’t try to understand why the old man needed to be at that cafe specifically all he cared about was trying to make the old man leave. The old man looked over at the waiters signaling that he wanted more brandy but the hurried young waiter said “Finished. No more tonight. Closed now.” The old man just said “Another” but the waiter shook his head, causing the old man to get up, pay for his drinks and leave. The unhurried waiter was confused on why he forced the old man to leave he told the other waiter it wasn’t half past two, his response was “I want to go home to bed.” He told the unhurried waiter and hour to him is more than an hour to the old man, even though an hour is an hour. The older waiter told the young waiter “You have youth, confidence, and a job, you have everything.” He told him he lacks everything but a job, the young waiter didn’t understand what he meant so the older waiter said “I have never had confidence and I am not young.” As the simple dialogue went on he later said he was one of the people that like to stay late at the cafes, he’s with the people that don’t want to go to