nightowl
Jan 11, 2013
Book Reports / A Clean Well-Lighted Place'; A SHORT STORY REVIEW in Lit Course [2]
Please point out any illogical or incoherent error. Help is really really appreciated.
In 'A Clean Well-Lighted Place', Ernest Hemingway suggests that as life draws on into infinity, human is only left with a stringent sense of loneliness and the cruel understanding that life holds no meaning. Things pass, life dissolves into nothingness. Man is only a speck of that nothingness and could do hardly anything to fight the flow of time. He should keep on living anyway, upholding what is left in his pool of moral values.
The story has a simple plot. In a Spanish cafĂŠ, an old man sits late. Deaf, he can still tell the difference between the busy day-streets and the quiet atmosphere of nighttime, and prefers to stay at the cafĂŠ and drink brandy rather than go home. The two waiters keep an eye on him because they know if he gets too drunk, he will not pay for the drinks. To pass the time they talk of the old man's attempted suicide. The young waiter tries to attribute his act to a lack of money or love, but the older waiter maintains it is something else - "... a familiar nothing that he knew too well". In a hurry, the younger waiter insults the old man, calling him 'a nasty thing', but the older one corrects him, saying the old man is clean and never spills his wine. The young waiter finally asks the old man out, closes down the cafĂŠ and goes home to his wife.
After the cafĂŠ closes, the older waiter walks along the streets, thinking to himself how important it is to keep a cafĂŠ clean and well lit. Unlike the younger waiter, he can clearly identify with the old man's feel of nothingness and urge to get drunk every night. Lost in thought, he arrives at a bar and orders a cup of nada. A cup of nothing. The bartender thinks he is insane, and offers him coffee instead. The waiter finishes his cup, makes a comment that the bar is lighted but unpolished, and leaves. He goes home, trying to convince himself all is just symptoms of insomnia.
The story unfolds with relation to the lateness of night. The three men in the story deal with the progress of time with diverging attitudes. The old man, estimated by the waiters to be around eighty years of age, is at the sunset of his life. We learn that 'he had plenty of money.', but financial difficulty does not seem to be his significant concern. He once had a wife, but he does not now. Time demoralizes him with overdoses of loneliness, tempting him to suicide by a rope, but his niece cut him down. The old man is tired of shouldering on the burden of living, but sadly unable to lay back the force of life. Resorting to a seat in a clean, pleasant and well-lighted cafĂŠ is his temporary escape. Sitting, although distant and drifting in his private world, in a cafĂŠ is not the same as being completely alone.
In contrast, the young waiter hurtles happily along the rush of time. In possession of "youth, confidence, and a job", he has yet to feel the inclined flow of time and the somber loneliness that accompanies it. His reference to the man as 'a nasty thing' expresses his nonchalance to the suffering of the old man and insensitivity to the elder waiter.
"What is an hour?""More to me than to him."
His reply indicates an eager use of time. An hour appeals more to him as the enjoyment of youthful pleasures than a difficult effort to sympathize with lonely souls. 'He does not want to be unjust", he only finds loneliness and despair as unacceptable explanations for suicide. In his inexperience, the young waiter draws the conclusion that the old man's money can easily solve all problems and that the man is just being unreasonable.
The elder waiter is the antipode of the light-hearted young waiter in his acquaintance with despair. "It was not fear or dread. It was a nothing that he knew too well. It was a nothing and a man was nothing too." - his thoughts vacillated between nothingness as a feel and nothingness as the nature of human. Like the old man, he is afraid of this familiar nothing. Often troubled, he also finds comfort in sitting at late-night cafes, in the hope that the pains adding up in long nights of darkness, loneliness, and nothingness, would ease off. "It was only that and light was all it needed and a certain cleanness and order." - the old waiter told himself. The presence of light, cleanliness and order stand in contrast with the inherent nothing in human. They cannot cure completely but at least will subdue partly the imminence of "shadows the leaves of the tree made against the electric light" - a metaphor for human constant endurance of loneliness and despair.
In 'A Clean, Well-Lighted Place', religion loses its position of spiritual salvation in human's struggle with the relentless flow of time. The old man is literally deaf, which means he is isolated in terms of the spoken words, including the promises and teachings of Christianity. The old waiter, deep in thoughts in his walk to an all-night bar, turns to Catholic prayers. Because of the pervasion of the concept of nothingness in his head, he could not finish saying the intended sacred lines, but substitute 'nada' for most of the words. This event marks the climax of his existential angst. Both of the old men seem to find greater solace for their sorrows in clean well-lighted cafes, sitting in which gives them relative detachment to their own sorrowful selves.
As the story drives towards an end, the man walks out of the cafĂŠ, and the old waiter goes home to fall to bed. They leave the warm lights of nighttime cafes behind and return to the lonely struggle with uncertainty of a meaning in life. Although the old man's dignity or the waiter's empathy may be of trivial support to their futile search for meaning, both still embrace them, because sometimes they remain the only anchor to life.
Please point out any illogical or incoherent error. Help is really really appreciated.
In 'A Clean Well-Lighted Place', Ernest Hemingway suggests that as life draws on into infinity, human is only left with a stringent sense of loneliness and the cruel understanding that life holds no meaning. Things pass, life dissolves into nothingness. Man is only a speck of that nothingness and could do hardly anything to fight the flow of time. He should keep on living anyway, upholding what is left in his pool of moral values.
The story has a simple plot. In a Spanish cafĂŠ, an old man sits late. Deaf, he can still tell the difference between the busy day-streets and the quiet atmosphere of nighttime, and prefers to stay at the cafĂŠ and drink brandy rather than go home. The two waiters keep an eye on him because they know if he gets too drunk, he will not pay for the drinks. To pass the time they talk of the old man's attempted suicide. The young waiter tries to attribute his act to a lack of money or love, but the older waiter maintains it is something else - "... a familiar nothing that he knew too well". In a hurry, the younger waiter insults the old man, calling him 'a nasty thing', but the older one corrects him, saying the old man is clean and never spills his wine. The young waiter finally asks the old man out, closes down the cafĂŠ and goes home to his wife.
After the cafĂŠ closes, the older waiter walks along the streets, thinking to himself how important it is to keep a cafĂŠ clean and well lit. Unlike the younger waiter, he can clearly identify with the old man's feel of nothingness and urge to get drunk every night. Lost in thought, he arrives at a bar and orders a cup of nada. A cup of nothing. The bartender thinks he is insane, and offers him coffee instead. The waiter finishes his cup, makes a comment that the bar is lighted but unpolished, and leaves. He goes home, trying to convince himself all is just symptoms of insomnia.
The story unfolds with relation to the lateness of night. The three men in the story deal with the progress of time with diverging attitudes. The old man, estimated by the waiters to be around eighty years of age, is at the sunset of his life. We learn that 'he had plenty of money.', but financial difficulty does not seem to be his significant concern. He once had a wife, but he does not now. Time demoralizes him with overdoses of loneliness, tempting him to suicide by a rope, but his niece cut him down. The old man is tired of shouldering on the burden of living, but sadly unable to lay back the force of life. Resorting to a seat in a clean, pleasant and well-lighted cafĂŠ is his temporary escape. Sitting, although distant and drifting in his private world, in a cafĂŠ is not the same as being completely alone.
In contrast, the young waiter hurtles happily along the rush of time. In possession of "youth, confidence, and a job", he has yet to feel the inclined flow of time and the somber loneliness that accompanies it. His reference to the man as 'a nasty thing' expresses his nonchalance to the suffering of the old man and insensitivity to the elder waiter.
"What is an hour?""More to me than to him."
His reply indicates an eager use of time. An hour appeals more to him as the enjoyment of youthful pleasures than a difficult effort to sympathize with lonely souls. 'He does not want to be unjust", he only finds loneliness and despair as unacceptable explanations for suicide. In his inexperience, the young waiter draws the conclusion that the old man's money can easily solve all problems and that the man is just being unreasonable.
The elder waiter is the antipode of the light-hearted young waiter in his acquaintance with despair. "It was not fear or dread. It was a nothing that he knew too well. It was a nothing and a man was nothing too." - his thoughts vacillated between nothingness as a feel and nothingness as the nature of human. Like the old man, he is afraid of this familiar nothing. Often troubled, he also finds comfort in sitting at late-night cafes, in the hope that the pains adding up in long nights of darkness, loneliness, and nothingness, would ease off. "It was only that and light was all it needed and a certain cleanness and order." - the old waiter told himself. The presence of light, cleanliness and order stand in contrast with the inherent nothing in human. They cannot cure completely but at least will subdue partly the imminence of "shadows the leaves of the tree made against the electric light" - a metaphor for human constant endurance of loneliness and despair.
In 'A Clean, Well-Lighted Place', religion loses its position of spiritual salvation in human's struggle with the relentless flow of time. The old man is literally deaf, which means he is isolated in terms of the spoken words, including the promises and teachings of Christianity. The old waiter, deep in thoughts in his walk to an all-night bar, turns to Catholic prayers. Because of the pervasion of the concept of nothingness in his head, he could not finish saying the intended sacred lines, but substitute 'nada' for most of the words. This event marks the climax of his existential angst. Both of the old men seem to find greater solace for their sorrows in clean well-lighted cafes, sitting in which gives them relative detachment to their own sorrowful selves.
As the story drives towards an end, the man walks out of the cafĂŠ, and the old waiter goes home to fall to bed. They leave the warm lights of nighttime cafes behind and return to the lonely struggle with uncertainty of a meaning in life. Although the old man's dignity or the waiter's empathy may be of trivial support to their futile search for meaning, both still embrace them, because sometimes they remain the only anchor to life.
