Reader Response to A Clean, Well-Lighted Place
In 1933, Ernest Hemmingway wrote A Clean, Well-Lighted Place. It's a story of two waiters working late one night in a cafe. Their last customer, a lonely old man getting drunk, is their last customer. The younger waiter wishes the customer would leave while the other waiter is indifferent because he isn't in so much of a hurry. I had a definite, differentiated response to this piece of literature because in my occupation I can relate to both cafe workers.
Hemmingway's somber tale is about conquering late night loneliness in a bright cafe. The customer drinking brandy suffers from it and so does the older waiter. However, the younger waiter cannot understand loneliness because he probably hasn't been very lonely in his life. He mentions a couple times throughout the story that he wished to be able to go home to his wife, yet the old man and old waiter have no wives to go home to like he does. This story have a deeper meaning to me because I often am in a similar situation at work.
For a little over three years, I've been a weekend bartender at an American Legion Club. I almost always work the entire weekends, open to close, which proves to be a tortorous schedule at times. Like the cafe in Hemmingway's tale, the Legion is a civilized place, often well lit, and quieter than most clubs. Because members have to either have served in the military during wartime or have a relative that did, the patronage is often older and more respectful than an average barroom. And because most members are older, they may not have a family to go home to, or they may be just a little more dismal because their lives have been longer and harder than most. In many ways, they are very much like the old man sipping brandy while hiding in the shadows of the leaves in Hemmingway's cafe. And in many ways, I am like the young waiter, anxious to leave.
The young waiter seems selfish and inconsiderate of anyone else. In the beginning of the story, he's confused why the old man tried to kill himself. "He has plenty of money," he says, as if that's the only thing anyone needs for happiness. When the old man orders another drink, the younger waiter warns him that he'll get drunk, as if to waver his own responsibility rather than to warn the old man for his sake.
When our lives begin, we are innocent and life is beautiful, but as we grow older and time slowly and quickly passes we discover that not everything about life is quite so pleasing. Along with the joys and happiness we experience there is also pain, sadness and loneliness. Hemingway's "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place," and Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" both tell us about older men who are experiencing these dreadful emotions.
Richard Wright introduces the main character in his novel, “Native Sun”, as a poor black man, named Bigger Thomas, living in the ghetto. In book 1 “fear”, I analyzed how Bigger lived and learned who his true character was. I also learned how he felt towards himself, family, and his friends. Bigger Thomas’ character is a very angry and violent person towards anyone who makes him feel afraid or out of place. Richard Wright uses imagery, sentence syntax, and symbolism to express how Bigger Thomas truly thinks.
The English settlement of Springfield is an example of how first European trader and then settlement affected pre-existing Native American trade networks and political relations. Settled in 1636, Springfield was the first English settlement in the middle Connecticut River Valley. Englishman William Pynchon and his son John quickly established a lucrative fur trade with local Native peoples. Native hunters traded furs for European products, while the English sold their furs back to England for high profits. By the 1650s, however, hunters had exhausted the fur supply of the region. Tensions between Native communities flared into open hostility as hunters traveled further into territories outside their homelands to find beavers. Warfare between the Kanien'kehaka (Mohawks) of the Haudenosaunee from Eastern New York and the Pocumtucks in 1664 pushed many Pocumtucks from the central area of their homeland.
He is a angry young African American man who grew up in south-side Chicago, surrounded by the harsh reality of poverty: in spirit, in education, and of truth. Thus, Bigger is an example of a boy deprived of a father (figure), a boy with an underprivileged education, and the product of a lower and unemployed class. Granted, Bigger got a job through a relationship but there is an obstacle. He is envious of the color of the skin and the privilege that his employer has. Being that, his character of anger transformed into Animosity; that Animosity was released. As a result, Bigger’s story ends in prison like the majority of people placed in his situation. His obstacle of anger prevented what could have been opportunity, of no longer being the employee but working hard enough to become the
In Native Son Book One Fear: We can infer that Bigger Thomas has suppressed many feeling and feels uneasiness about his own thoughts. Bigger was just afraid of his own thoughts to not be able to express and physically do what he wished to do creating fear within himself. So now that Bigger has let go of that fear by murdering someone he feels like he has power to do whatever he wants since black people are overlooked he believes that no one will suspect him.
Pinckney praises Native Son as a powerful intellectual book that deals with issues of racism and oppression. He says explicitly that it is the most powerful book, but it is unclear what domain of books Pinckney is comparing Native Son with. Pinckney refutes James Baldwin’s statement about Native Son, saying that Bigger Thomas is not a mere stereotype, but an example of a stressed black boy of the racially segregated American society during the 1930s. It is true that Bigger Thomas is a victim of a racially segregated society.
Majority/Minority group relations can be illustrated by studying the role of power and how it is distributed between groups. The majority, or group that wields the most power, directly affects the circumstances for the minority. In most cases power struggle leads to racial and ethnic inequality. This scenario describes the case of the Native Americans. Since the arrival of the Europeans in 1492 the Native American has systematically been dehumanized, decivilized and redefined into terms that typify a subordinate or minority role, restricted life opportunities persist today as a result (Farley, 2000).
People being prejudice and racist have been a major issue in society. This causes people to commit crimes in order to receive justice. In Native Son by Richard Wright there is a lot of prejudice against the black community. In Book Two: Flight; we get a closer look at Bigger Thomas’s actions and thoughts after murdering Mary. With the amount of racism and stereotypes made against the black community it has forced Bigger to feel that the people around him are blind, making him feel powerful and him murdering Mary is justified.
Bennett, Warren. “The Manuscript and the Dialogue of ‘A Clean, Well-Lighted Place’.” American Literature. 50.4 (1979): 613-624. JSTOR. Web. 8 Feb. 2014.
Earnest Hemingway’s work gives a glimpse of how people deal with their problems in society. He conveys his own characteristics through his simple and “iceberg” writing style, his male characters’ constant urge to prove their masculinity.
The Native Americans who occupied America before any white settlers ever reached the shores “covered the land as the waves of a wind-ruffled sea cover its shell paved floor” (1). These Native people were one with nature and the Great Spirit was all around them. They were accustom to their way of life and lived peacefully. All they wish was to live on their land and continue the traditions of their people. When the white settler came upon their land the values of the Native people were challenged, for the white settlers had nothing in common and believe that it was their duty to assimilate the Native Americans to the white way of life.
He could be described as very close-minded to anyone else 's opinions, he is a man of self-assurance. "I have confidence. I am all confidence" (Hemingway 202) He expresses in the story. This man has a family, stability, his job, and everything to look forward to. Although he contains the inability to connect with others in the story due to the lack of experience. When the older waiter said "what is an hour" he replied "more to me than him" (202) This quote shows his lack of empathy for one who does not feel worth in themself, he rushes out with no worries about anyone else 's problems. The younger waiter 's mentality consists of selfish views that since he has all he needs in life and happiness within himself that other 's lives are less important, with less meaning. He approaches the old man sitting and calling for another brandy exclaiming "You should have killed yourself last week" (201). This quote is ironic because the man could not hear the bold statement made by the younger waiter, but highlights the mentality of his that once you lose the materialistic qualities of life, it 's over. The younger waiter shows a more fatalism perspective, with expressing that everything happens for a reason and that the man was supposed to kill himself that night. Hermingway successfully created a character with opposite views to better express the
Bigger Thomas feels trapped long before he is incarcerated for killing Mary Dalton. He is trapped in an overpriced apartment with his family and trapped in a white world he has no hope of changing. He knows that he is predisposed to receiving unfair treatment because he is black, but he still always feels as though he is headed for an unpleasant end. The three sections that make up the novel Native Son by Richard Wright, “Fear,” “Flight” and “Fate,” imply a continuous and pervasive cycle throughout Bigger’s life that ultimately leads him to murder.
Upon leaving Boston, the young man’s status and attitude change drastically. He becomes a captive of Crow Indians who treat him badly. He becomes property of a “...scrawny, shrieking, eternally busy old woman with ragged graying hair..” He must gain her trust to earn more freedom around the camp and such. During this time he was “...finding out what loneliness could be.”
A young African American boy named Richard was the protagonist of Black Boy. Growing up, Richard did not know the meaning of “black” and “whites” (Black). In his young days, Richard heard about a “black” boy who was beaten by a “white” man. In Richard’s world, only the fathers beat their sons, so he thought that this is what happened, but because he was young at the time, nothing made sense, so this was one of the few situations of racism he actually heard, but he experienced it after a group of white men murdered his Uncle Hoskins which ended up causing his family to move (Black). However, in Native Son, Bigger Thomas, the protagonist, already had a known hatred for white people (Native). Whites had many privileges that African Americans could not have, so it was only natural for Bigger to hate white people (Native). These experienced