A Clean, Well-Lighted Place

by Ernest Hemingway

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Discussion Topic

Attitudes and understanding of characters in "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place"

Summary:

The characters in "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" exhibit differing attitudes and levels of understanding. The younger waiter is impatient and lacks empathy, eager to close the café and go home. In contrast, the older waiter shows compassion and a deeper understanding of the despair that drives the old man to seek solace in the café late at night.

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Compare the attitudes of the younger and older waiter towards the old man in "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place".

Using Hemingway's own words, the young waiter is "the waiter who was in a hurry," while the old waiter is the "unhurried waiter." That is, the young waiter exists in the present tense of his youth; he does not sympathize with the old man as does the older waiter.  The waiter in a hurry wants the old man to leave so that he can go home to his wife; he has a full life that leaves him no time to contemplate existential questions as do the old man and the older waiter.  The older waiter tells the other waiter,

"You have youth, confidence, and a job," the older waiter said."You have everything....."

"I am of those who like to stay late at the cafe," the older waiter said..... "With all those who do not want to go to bed. With all those who need a light for the night."

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the old man, the older waiter understands the existential angst that comes with age. Disillusioned in life, the older men understand the "nada," the nothingness of most existence:  "It was all nothing and a man was nothing, too."  So, in order to keep from contemplating this "nada," the men prefer to stay up late in a clean well-lighted place that at least temporarily keeps the nothingness at bay.  It is in the darkness that the old man and the older waiter lie alone and sense this "nada."  But, the young man has his wife, another being, with whom to keep the nothingness from entering his thoughts.  And, since he is not alone in the night, the young man does not concern himself with the thoughts of the old man.  Instead, he wishes the old man would simply get out of his way and leave the cafe, even die:

"I'm sleepy now.I never get into bed before three o'clock. He should have killed himself last week."

Because the young waiter has "everything" as the older waiter tells him, he has meaning in his life, unlike the older waiter who, like the old man, is alone and has only "nada," seeking a clean well-lighted place to keep out the thoughts of the nothingness of existence. 

It was a nothing that he knew too well. It was all a nothing and a man was a nothing too. It was only that and light was all it needed and a certain cleanness and order. Some lived in it and never felt it but he knew it all was nada....

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In "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place," who is more understanding, the old man or the younger waiter?

To clarify, there are three characters in the story, two of whom are older than the young waiter. Hemingway's "old man" is a deaf patron of the cafe who stays late to drink alone on the terrace. The young waiter, wanting to close and go home early, resents his presence and treats him rudely. The other waiter, however, is an older man himself, developed in contrast to the young waiter.

The reader logically might expect the older waiter to demonstrate more understanding simply because he has lived longer and experienced more of life; this inference would be correct. The older waiter is far more understanding and empathetic than is the younger man. The young waiter shows his ignorance of life and human experience early in the story when he talks about the old man's recent suicide attempt, saying the old man had no reason to despair because "[h]e has plenty of money." 

The older waiter lacks the young man's brash confidence; he knows life better:

I am of those who like to stay late at the cafe . . . With all those who do not want to go to bed. With all those who need a light for the night . . . Each night I am reluctant to close up because there may be some one who needs the cafe.

When the older waiter does leave work, he does not go home. He goes to another bar, not as nice as a cafe, but a place of light, as well. Eventually, he must leave even this place:

Now, without thinking further, he would go home to his room. He would lie in the bed and finally, with daylight, he would go to sleep. After all, he said to himself, it is probably only insomnia. Many must have it.

Unlike the young waiter, the older man understands personal loneliness and the ultimate spiritual loneliness that comes from the belief in "nada": "It was a nothing that he knew too well. It was all a nothing and a man was nothing too."

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