Clean Well Lighted Place Symbolism

“If you find a darkness in your heart after you sinned, you know that in your heart there is a light, because of this light, you felt the darkness.” We all have a conscience in our minds that gives us an inner feeling telling us if we made the right or wrong choice. The feeling we get from our conscience can oftentimes define our outlook on life and the way we treat others. In Ernest Hemingway's “A Clean Well-Lighted Place” he shows this through the waiters on their outlook on life and the different way they treat the customers. Hemingway uses light and dark to show the difference between the older waiter and the younger waiters outlooks.
In past literature and in society you can see the symbolism of what light and darkness means in a person's

Throughout the story you can tell the older waiter is the one that points out the good in things and keeps the other people’s spirits high. He is the one that tries to make sure they are treating all of the customers nicely and not treating them like they are worthless. In the story, he is the one that makes sure they are treating the old man in a semi-nice way and he looks out for him making sure he does not drink too much. He also seeks the light and tries to give other people some of the light by helping them and treating them nicely. The older waiter is the one that tries to get the younger waiter to treat the old man nicely because he knows he does not have a good home life and needs comfort. “‘Not always. This old man is clean. He drinks without spilling. Even now, drunk. Look at him’ (Hemingway 3).” He was constantly trying to make the customers not be so upset and treat them like the way he thinks the person needs to be treated. This is how he would try to spread the light to other people who are in the darkness that he knows about. He would also try to make the younger waiter be nicer to the other people in the cafe because he was not ever really nice to the people. The older waiter would try and make the younger waiter be nicer and treat the customers nicely instead of rudely like he is usually doing because he could make them more upset. He would try to make sure people

Throughout the story, you can tell that the younger waiter is just carefree and he points out all the bad things and is not always nice to the people that go to the cafe. He is the person that does not see the significance of all his surroundings and he does not see that not everyone has a good home life and are sometimes lonely. He would treat people based on how they acted and what they were doing while being in the cafe. The younger waiter was not very nice and caring to the old man who was depressed which he knew that he was. This is just one example showing that he was not seeing the significance of his surroundings, especially for other people. He would also not really care about what they were feeling because he would just treat everyone the same. “‘You should have killed yourself last week,’ he said to the deaf man (Hemingway 2).” The younger waiter would also just say things out loud and if the person was to hear them it could really upset them. He would not really ever think about what that person could be going through at home or in the past and how it could be affecting their daily lives. The younger waiter does not make himself aware of others life and what kind of mental state they could be in. He should start to try and make an effort to realize the significance of his other peers before saying anything to people. The younger waiter will end up