Age in A Clean, Well-Lighted Place Essay

A Clean, Well-Lighted Place

"A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" by Ernest Hemingway is a story which emphasizes on three age groups that each has a different view of life. By analyzing the three different points of view, we see Hemingway's perspective of an old man. The short story is about an old man that sits in a very clean bar every so often who drinks away at two o'clock in the morning and is the last one to leave. There are three waiters: one is a young man, one is an older gentleman, and the last is a very old man. All the waiters see him in a different way based on their age.

The young waiter was in a rush to close the bar an hour earlier because there was only the lonely old man in it. It was two a.m. and the bar is supposed to close at three. This young man throws the old man out of the bar just so he can go into bed with his wife. The young man has absolutely no respect for the older man who is deaf. He yelled at the old man saying, "You should have killed yourself last week." The waiter treats him like an obstacle as if he is slowing down his life. The second waiter introduced is a middle-aged man. He does not say much, but it seems as though that this is because he does not want to get in a fight with the younger waiter. All he does is ask the young waiter questions, as if the middle-aged waiter was sort of stuck in a catch twenty-two. The middle aged man felt for the old man but could not express his feelings to the younger waiter.

Lastly, there is the old waiter. He is some where around the age of the old man that sat at the table. He definitely feels for the man at the table because he knows what it is like to be old and lonely. The waiter says, "I am of those who like to stay late at the caf, with all those who do not want to go to bed. With all those who need a light for the night." The waiter knows that the caf is a very nice place for people at night, especially the old, because it is clean and well lit.

At the heart of the story is the symbol of the caf, an island of light and order surrounded by night and nothingness. Contrasting images of light and darkness begin in the opening paragraph: the old man, not entirely committed either to death or to life, likes to sit in the shadow of the leaves. Every detail in the story seems meaningful.

This celebrated story is a study in contrasts: between youth and age, belief and doubt, light and darkness. To the younger waiter, the caf is only a job; to the older waiter, it is a charitable institution for which he feels personal responsibility. Of course, he himself has need of it: it is his refuge from the night, from solitude, from a sense that the universe is empty and meaningless.

It is clear all along, as we overhear the conversation of the two waiters, that Hemingway sides with the elders view of the old man. The older waiter reveals himself as wiser and more compassionate. We resent the younger mans abuse of the old man, who cannot hear his stupid syntax, his equation of money with happiness. But the older waiter and Hemingway do not see things identically.

What does the caf represent for the tow of them?