A Clean
Well-Lighted Place
By
Ernest Hemingway
Context
Born in 1899 in
Oak Park , Illinois ,
near Chicago Europe ,
and he wanted to enlist in the army. His father forbade him from enlisting,
however, so Hemingway became a reporter for the Kansas City Star, where
he began to hone his writing skills. Eventually, he grew restless and became an
ambulance driver for the Red Cross in Italy Milan Paris in 1921 to work as a reporter for
the Toronto
Hemingway moved
back to the United States in
1928, setting up a home in Key West ,
Florida Spain Havana , Cuba ,
and then back to Europe to contribute to the
war effort in World War II.
Hemingway
published his first novel, The Torrents of Spring, in 1925 and The
Sun Also Rises in 1926. The latter novel was his first literary success and
coincided with the end of his marriage to Hadley Richardson. Hemingway went on
to marry three more times and publish many more novels, including A Farewell
to Arms (1929), based on his experiences in Italy during World War I, and The
Old Man and the Sea (1952), for which he won the Pulitzer Prize. He also
published many collections of short stories, including In Our Time
(1925), Men Without Women (1927), and Winner Take Nothing (1933)
in which “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” first appeared. The range, skill, and
influence of Hemingway’s work won him the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954.
“A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” is one of Hemingway’s most
acclaimed short stories, as much for its exquisitely sparse writing style as
for its expertly rendered existentialist themes. Existentialism is a
philosophical movement whose adherents believe that life has no higher purpose
and that no higher being exists to help us make sense of it. Instead, humans
are left alone to find meaning in the world and their lives. In “A Clean, Well-Lighted
Place,” the older waiter sums up the despair that drives him and others to
brightly lit cafés by saying simply, “It is a nothing.”
Despite his great literary successes,
Hemingway struggled with depression, alcoholism, and related health problems throughout
his life. In 1960, Hemingway and his fourth wife, Mary Welsh, moved to Ketchum , Idaho
Plot Overview
An old man sits alone at night in a café. He is deaf and
likes when the night grows still. Two waiters watch the old man carefully
because they know he won’t pay if he gets too drunk. One waiter tells the other
that the old man tried to kill himself because he was in despair. The other
waiter asks why he felt despair, and the first waiter says the reason was
“nothing” because the man has a lot of money.
The waiters look at the empty tables and the old man, who
sits in the shadow of a tree. They see a couple walk by, a soldier with a girl.
One of the waiters says the soldier had better be careful about being out
because the guards just went by. The old man taps his glass against its saucer
and asks the younger waiter for a brandy. The younger waiter tells him he’ll
get drunk, then goes back and tells the older waiter that the old man will stay
all night. The younger waiter says he never goes to bed earlier than 3 a.m. and that the old man should have
killed himself. He takes the old man his brandy. As he pours it, he tells the
old man that he should have killed himself, but the old man just indicates that
he wants more brandy in the glass.
The younger waiter tells the older waiter that the old
man is drunk, then asks again why he tried to kill himself. The older waiter
says he doesn’t know. The younger waiter asks how he did it. The older waiter
says he tried to hang himself and his niece found him and got him down. The younger
waiter asks why she got him down, and the older waiter says they were concerned
about his soul. The waiters speculate on how much money the old man has and
decide he’s probably age eighty.
The younger waiter says he wishes the old man would leave
so that he can go home and go to bed with his wife. The older waiter says that
the old man was married at one time. The younger waiter says a wife wouldn’t do
him any good, but the older waiter disagrees. The younger waiter points out
that the old man has his niece, then says he doesn’t want to be an old man. The
older waiter points out that the old man is clean and drinks neatly. The
younger waiter says again that he wishes the old man would leave.
The old man indicates that he wants another brandy, but
the younger waiter tells him they’re closing. The old man pays and walks away.
The older waiter asks the younger waiter why he didn’t let him drink more
because it’s not even 3 a.m. yet,
and the younger waiter says he wants to go home. The older waiter says an hour
doesn’t make much difference. The younger waiter says that the old man can just
drink at home, but the older waiter says it’s different. The younger waiter
agrees.
The older waiter jokingly asks if the younger waiter is
afraid to go home early. The younger waiter says he has confidence. The older
waiter points out that he also has youth and a job, whereas the older waiter
has only a job. The older waiter says that he likes to stay at cafés very late
with the others who are reluctant to go home and who need light during the
nighttime. The younger waiter says he wants to go home, and the older waiter
remarks that they are very different. The older waiter says he doesn’t like to
close the café in case someone needs it. The younger waiter says there are bars
to go to, but the older waiter says that the café is clean and well lit. They
wish each other good night.
The older waiter continues thinking to
himself about how important it is for a café to be clean and well lit. He
thinks that music is never good to have at a café and that standing at a bar
isn’t good either. He wonders what he’s afraid of, deciding it’s not fear but
just a familiar nothing. He says two prayers but substitutes “nada” (Spanish
for “nothing”) for most of the words. When he arrives at a bar, he orders a
drink and tells the bartender that the bar isn’t clean. The bartender offers
another drink, but the waiter leaves. He doesn’t like bars, preferring cafés.
He knows that he will now go home and fall asleep when the sun comes up. He
thinks he just has insomnia, a common problem.
Character List
The Old Man - A deaf man who likes to drink at the café
late into the night. The old man likes the shadows of the leaves on the
well-lit café terrace. Rumor has it that he tried to hang himself, he was once
married, he has a lot of money, and his niece takes care of him. He often gets
drunk at the café and leaves without paying.
The Older Waiter - A compassionate man who
understands why the old man may want to stay late at the café. The older waiter
enjoys staying late at cafés as well. He thinks it’s very important for a café
to be clean and well lit, and he sees the café as a refuge from despair. Rather
than admit that he is lonely, he tells himself that he has insomnia.
The Younger Waiter - An impatient young man
who cares only about getting home to his wife. The younger waiter is usually
irritated with the old man because he must stay late and serve him drinks. He
does not seem to care why the old man stays so long. His only concern is
leaving as quickly as possible.
Analysis of
Major Characters
Like the old man, the older waiter likes to stay late at
cafés, and he understands on a deep level why they are both reluctant to go
home at night. He tries to explain it to the younger waiter by saying, “He
stays up because he likes it,” but the younger waiter dismisses this and says
that the old man is lonely. Indeed, both the old man and the older waiter are
lonely. The old man lives alone with only a niece to look after him, and we
never learn what happened to his wife. He drinks alone late into the night,
getting drunk in cafés. The older waiter, too, is lonely. He lives alone and
makes a habit of staying out late rather than going home to bed. But there is
more to the older waiter’s “insomnia,” as he calls it, than just loneliness. An
unnamed, unspecified malaise seems to grip him. This malaise is not “a fear or
dread,” as the older waiter clarifies to himself, but an overwhelming feeling
of nothingness—an existential angst about his place in the universe and an
uncertainty about the meaning of life. Whereas other people find meaning and
comfort in religion, the older waiter dismisses religion as “nada”—nothing. The
older waiter finds solace only in clean, well-lit cafés. There, life seems to
make sense.
The older waiter recognizes himself in the old man and
sees his own future. He stands up for the old man against the younger waiter’s
criticisms, pointing out that the old man might benefit from a wife and is
clean and neat when he drinks. The older waiter has no real reason to take the
old man’s side. In fact, the old man sometimes leaves the café without paying.
But the possible reason for his support becomes clear when the younger waiter
tells the older waiter that he talks like an old man too. The older waiter is
aware that he is not young or confident, and he knows that he may one day be
just like the old man—unwanted, alone, and in despair. Ultimately, the older
waiter is reluctant to close the café as much for the old man’s sake as for his
own because someday he’ll need someone to keep a café open late for him.
Brash and insensitive, the younger
waiter can’t see beyond himself. He readily admits that he isn’t lonely and is
eager to return home where his wife is waiting for him. He doesn’t seem to care
that others can’t say the same and doesn’t recognize that the café is a refuge
for those who are lonely. The younger waiter is immature and says rude things
to the old man because he wants to close the café early. He seems unaware that
he won’t be young forever or that he may need a place to find solace later in
life too. Unlike the older waiter, who thinks deeply—perhaps too deeply—about
life and those who struggle to face it, the younger waiter demonstrates a
dismissive attitude toward human life in general. For example, he says the old
man should have just gone ahead and killed himself and says that he “wouldn’t
want to be that old.” He himself has reason to live, and his whole life is
ahead of him. “You have everything,” the older waiter tells him. The younger waiter,
immersed in happiness, doesn’t really understand that he is lucky, and he
therefore has little compassion or understanding for those who are lonely and
still searching for meaning in their lives.
Themes, Motifs,
and Symbols
Themes
Life as
Nothingness
In “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place,” Hemingway suggests that
life has no meaning and that man is an insignificant speck in a great sea of
nothingness. The older waiter makes this idea as clear as he can when he says,
“It was all a nothing and man was a nothing too.” When he substitutes the
Spanish word nada (nothing) into the prayers he recites, he
indicates that religion, to which many people turn to find meaning and purpose,
is also just nothingness. Rather than pray with the actual words, “Our Father
who art in heaven,” the older waiter says, “Our nada who art in
nada”—effectively wiping out both God and the idea of heaven in one breath. Not
everyone is aware of the nothingness, however. For example, the younger waiter
hurtles through his life hastily and happily, unaware of any reason why he
should lament. For the old man, the older waiter, and the other people who need
late-night cafés, however, the idea of nothingness is overwhelming and leads to
despair.
The Struggle to
Deal with Despair
The old man and older waiter in “A Clean, Well-Lighted
Place” struggle to find a way to deal with their despair, but even their best
method simply subdues the despair rather than cures it. The old man has tried
to stave off despair in several unsuccessful ways. We learn that he has money,
but money has not helped. We learn that he was once married, but he no longer
has a wife. We also learn that he has unsuccessfully tried to commit suicide in
a desperate attempt to quell the despair for good. The only way the old man can
deal with his despair now is to sit for hours in a clean, well-lit café. Deaf,
he can feel the quietness of the nighttime and the café, and although he is
essentially in his own private world, sitting by himself in the café is not the
same as being alone.
The older waiter, in his mocking prayers filled with the
word nada, shows that religion is not a viable method of dealing with
despair, and his solution is the same as the old man’s: he waits out the
nighttime in cafés. He is particular about the type of café he likes: the café
must be well lit and clean. Bars and bodegas, although many are open all night,
do not lessen despair because they are not clean, and patrons often must stand
at the bar rather than sit at a table. The old man and the older waiter also
glean solace from routine. The ritualistic café-sitting and drinking help them
deal with despair because it makes life predictable. Routine is something they
can control and manage, unlike the vast nothingness that surrounds them.
Motifs
Loneliness
Loneliness pervades “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” and
suggests that even though there are many people struggling with despair,
everyone must struggle alone. The deaf old man, with no wife and only a niece
to care for him, is visibly lonely. The younger waiter, frustrated that the old
man won’t go home, defines himself and the old man in opposites: “He’s lonely.
I’m not lonely.” Loneliness, for the younger waiter, is a key difference
between them, but he gives no thought to why the old man might be lonely and
doesn’t consider the possibility that he may one day be lonely too. The older
waiter, although he doesn’t say explicitly that he is lonely, is so similar to
the old man in his habit of sitting in cafés late at night that we can assume
that he too suffers from loneliness. The older waiter goes home to his room and
lies in bed alone, telling himself that he merely suffers from sleeplessness.
Even in this claim, however, he instinctively reaches out for company, adding,
“Many must have it.” The thought that he is not alone in having insomnia or
being lonely comforts him.
Symbols
The Café
The café represents the opposite of
nothingness: its cleanliness and good lighting suggest order and clarity,
whereas nothingness is chaotic, confusing, and dark. Because the café is so
different from the nothingness the older waiter describes, it serves as a
natural refuge from the despair felt by those who are acutely aware of the
nothingness. In a clean, brightly lit café, despair can be controlled and even
temporarily forgotten. When the older waiter describes the nothingness that is
life, he says, “It was only that and light was all it needed and a certain
cleanness and order.” The it in the sentence is never defined, but we
can speculate about the waiter’s meaning: although life and man are nothing,
light, clealiness, and order can serve as substance. They can help stave off
the despair that comes from feeling completely unanchored to anyone or
anything. As long as a clean, well-lighted café exists, despair can be kept in
check.
Hemingway’s
Economy of Style
“A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” is
arguably not only one of Hemingway’s best short stories but also a story that
clearly demonstrates the techniques of Hemingway’s signature writing style.
Hemingway is known for his economic prose—his writing is minimalist and sparse,
with few adverbs or adjectives. He includes only essential information, often
omitting background information, transitions, and dialogue tags such as “he
said” or “she said. He often uses pronouns without clear antecedents, such as
using the word it without clarifying what it refers to. Hemingway
applies the “iceberg principle” to his stories: only the tip of the story is
visible on the page, while the rest is left underwater—unsaid. Hemingway also
rarely specifies which waiter is speaking in the story because he has deemed
such clarification unnecessary. The essential element is that two waiters are
discussing a drunk old man—the rest can be omitted according to Hemingway’s
economy of style. When the older waiter contemplates the idea of nothingness,
Hemingway loads the sentences with vague pronouns, never clarifying what they
refer to: “It was all a nothing. . . . It was only
that. . . . Some lived in it . . .” Although
these lines are somewhat confusing, the confusion is the point. This
nothingness can’t be defined clearly, no matter how many words are used.
Hemingway uses fewer words and lets the effect of his style speak for itself.
The Deceptive
Pacing of the Story
Hemingway does not waste words on changing scenes or
marking the passage of time, leaving it up to us to keep track of what’s
happening and the story’s pacing. For example, only a brief conversation
between the waiters takes place between the time when the younger waiter serves
the old man a brandy and the time when the old man asks for another. Hemingway
is not suggesting that the old man has slugged back the brandy quickly. In
fact, the old man stays in the café for a long time. Time has lapsed here, but
Hemingway leaves it up to us to follow the pace of the story. The pace of “A
Clean, Well-Lighted Place” may seem swift, but the action of the story actually
stretches out for much longer than it appears to. The sitting, drinking, and
contemplating that take place are languid actions. We may read the story
quickly, but the scenes themselves are not quick.
Just as Hemingway doesn’t waste words
by trying to slow down his scenes, he also refrains from including unnecessary
transitions. For example, when the older waiter leaves the café and mulls over
the idea of nothingness, he finishes his parody of prayer and, without any
transition that suggests that he was walking, we suddenly find him standing at
a bar. Hemingway lets the waiter’s thoughts serve as the transition. When he
writes, “He smiled and stood before a bar,” we’re meant to understand that the
waiter had been walking and moving as he was thinking to himself. And when the
waiter orders a drink at the bar, the bartender offers him another just two
sentences later. Again, Hemingway is not suggesting that the waiter gulps his
drink. Instead, he conveys only the most essential information in the scene.
Existentialism
and the “Lost Generation”
The term Lost Generation refers
to the writers and artists living in Paris
1. “Each night I am reluctant to close up because there
may be some one who needs the café.”
The older waiter makes this comment near the end of the
story when he and the younger waiter are about to leave the café, and it
reveals his own loneliness and despair. Until this point, the old man seemed to
be the only one who wanted to stay at the café, but now the older waiter seems
to need the café as well. A few lines before this, he reveals that he is
someone who likes to stay at cafés late into the night, so his reluctance has
two meanings. First, he understands why the old man and others may want or need
to stay late, and he keeps the café open as a gesture of kindness and
generosity. Second, he himself needs the café, so he is reluctant to close it
because he, like the old man and others, will then be without a place to sit and
wait out the night. While the younger waiter is rushing to get home, the older
waiter leaves the café sadly, once again displaced and alone.
2. What did he fear? It was not fear or dread, It was a
nothing that he knew too well. It was all a nothing and a man was nothing too.
It was only that and light was all it needed and a certain cleanness and order.
This quotation appears near the end of the story, just after the older
waiter leaves the café, and it explains the nature of what afflicts the older
waiter and the old man, as well as all those people who want to stay in cafés
late at night. We learn that this affliction is not fear or dread, and from the
way the older waiter phrases his thoughts, we know that the affliction is not
something that is clear, concrete, or easily described. Hemingway fills this
passage with the vague pronouns it and that, never clarifying
exactly what it and that refer to. We learn only that the
affliction is “a nothing.” The older waiter repeats “nothing” over and over again,
emphasizing the idea.
The lack of specificity in this passage is confusing, but Hemingway is
being vague on purpose. By using vague pronouns and saying only that everything
is “nothing,” he conveys the idea that the problem keeping the older waiter and
the old man awake at night is related to something huge, even infinite,
something beyond what language can describe: the purpose and meaning of life.
Existential questions such as the meaning of life and existence make the night
a dangerous, empty place for the people who dare to consider them. Only a
clean, well-lighted café provides a refuge from these thoughts.
How to Cite This SparkNote
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APA
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Retrieved March 17, 2011, from http://www.sparknotes.com/short-stories/a-clean-well-lighted-place/
In Text Citation
MLA
“Their conversation is awkward, especially when she mentions Wickham, a
subject Darcy clearly wishes to avoid” (SparkNotes Editors).
APA
“Their conversation is awkward, especially when she mentions Wickham, a
subject Darcy clearly wishes to avoid” (SparkNotes Editors, 2007).
Footnote
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March 17, 2011).
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