Analysis of 'A Clean, Well-lighted Place' by Ernest Hemingway

Introduction to Existential Skepticism in Hemingway's Work

'A Clean, Well-Lighted Place' is Hemingway's paean to a kind of existential skepticism, an investigation of the significance, or deficiency in that department, of presence. It plainly communicates the way of thinking that underlies the Hemingway ordinance, harping on subjects of death, vanity, aimlessness, and sadness. Through the contemplations and expressions of a moderately-aged Spanish server, Hemingway embodies the primary precept of his existential way of thinking. Life is innately good for nothing and leads definitely to death, and the more seasoned one gets, the more clear these facts become and the less capable one is to force any sort of request on one's presence or keep up any sort of energy in one's standpoint.

Character Sketch and Thematic Exploration

'A Clean, Well-Lighted Place' is more similar to a character sketch than a plot-driven piece of fiction; this absence of plot causes us to notice the primary subject of the story: life, both in writing and out, can be seen basically as 'nothing y pues nothing y pues nothing' – nothing and nothing and nothing. There is no action in this story. The hero doesn't do anything, nor do the other two characters. Essentially, we have three individuals who represent different stages of life. The story is more a contemplation on these stages than a genuine 'story' about any of them. This story, in any case, satisfies the innovator name; it is a capricious, super-short, mental representation of three characters. The internal monologue of the more seasoned server quickly plunges into continuous flow mode, a procedure made especially well-known by Hemingway's counterparts James Joyce and Virginia Woolf. The story doesn't attempt to do anything we anticipate that a short story should do – there is no genuine conflict, and certainly no resolution. Rather, it simply delineates a progression of moments in everyday life.

The Existential Conflict

In 'A Clean, Well-Lighted Place,' Hemingway offers a genuinely negative perspective on the world, suggesting that even people who are young, happy, and thoroughly content will someday end up lonely, alcoholic, and frustrated. By giving us three characters in various stages of life (young, moderately-aged, and old), Hemingway illustrates how life becomes progressively unsatisfactory, until the main reasonable options are self-destruction or intoxication. The genuine conflict of 'A Clean, Well-Lighted Place' isn't between two characters, in any case, rather, in an increasingly theoretical sense, among man and time. The story deals with characters that all have different visions of the importance of time – the youngest man values it, but the older characters don't. The oldest character, a man near the end of his life, is essentially biding his time until he dies. The point is, the older you get, the more time wears upon you, and the more you feel your mortality. Hemingway wants us to recognize the fact that we all will grow old and die someday, regardless of how young or certain we are now.

Perceptions of Old Age

Hemingway's depiction of mature age topples the traditional perception of the old as wiser and more content with the world; mature age in this story involves greater discontent and frustration, while the wisdom gained about life is perplexing rather than consoling. According to Hemingway, it is the universal fate of death towards which we're going naturally but before it seeks his characters, they're bound to a kind of living limbo, simply waiting to pass on. The old man attempts to hurry along this process by hanging himself, but his niece obstructs him by cutting him down. Since self-destruction doesn't work out, he is compelled to continue living such a half-life, intoxicated and lonely. The other significant part is the way that Hemingway wants his characters to accept this fate with dignity; the old man certainly does, and we see the older server in the process of dealing with it. The younger server, however, resists the idea that he could be that old man someday, much like many of us, he imagines that his youth and confidence will last forever. However, the story bleakly implies that these important things are ultimately, like everything else, vulnerable to the overwhelming nothingness of existence.

The Allegorical Progression of Life

The presence of three characters in three different stages of life can be viewed as a purposeful anecdote exhibiting the progression of a person's perspective as that individual gets older. From the start, the individual lives certainly and foolishly, accepting the shows of occupation and family as adequate to offer meaning to their life, but as he gets older, he begins to question the types of meaning that have been imposed on his reality and finds them hollow. He may attempt to impose his own set of meanings and values on himself, however, Hemingway implies, he will fail and slip into the acknowledgment that life is nothing and he is nothing. Once this acknowledgment is reached and he grows old, he falls into despair at the proximity of death and the vanity of his life and may well choose to end his existence on his own terms rather than wait for events to overtake him. Perhaps, with this choice, he is finally able to take some control over his destiny.

Objective Tone and Narrative Style

The apathetic portrayal of 'A Clean, Well-Lighted Place' suggests an objective tone and allows us to truly process what the characters are saying. A large portion of the story is just dialogue, punctuated by a long section of 'nothing', we have nothing else to concentrate on but the character's words and thoughts, and Hemingway doesn't attempt to interfere with our interpretation of these things. He rarely places any judgment on his characters; for instance, when the younger server tells the old man, 'You should have killed yourself last week' (Hemingway, 1933, p. 7), another author might have been tempted to add some harsh descriptor in there to show how inconsiderate the server is perhaps 'he said cruelly' or 'he said unsympathetically.' Hemingway, however, just leaves it as it is, clean, straightforward, and proud: ''You should have killed yourself last week,' he said.'

Symbolism and Imagery

The writing style is sparse, straightforward, and unornamented. Its extreme brevity makes its point even more impressive, and the direct reportage of dialogue and internal monologue are more effective here than any measure of descriptive language could ever be. The most evident line we get, indeed, is the opening of the story, which, in fact, barely tells us anything at all: 'It was late and everyone had left the café except for an old man who sat in the shadow the leaves of the tree made against the electric light' (Hemingway, 1933, p. 1). In terms of imagery, the story uses contrasts to enhance its philosophical significance: youth and age, darkness and light, cleanness and dirtiness, noise and quiet, and nature (shadows of leaves) and artificial objects (coffee machine).

Hemingway's Omniscient Perspective

Hemingway's omniscient third-person narration allows us to perceive what's going on both inside and outside of the character's minds. We get traces of what's happening with the younger server and the old man for example, we know that the old man can feel the difference when it's quiet and that the younger server isn't truly a villain and he was just in a hurry. More fundamentally, though, we get a close look at the inside of the older server's mind, where the real significance of the story is revealed. This style of narration gives the reader a comprehensive view of the existential themes Hemingway is portraying, allowing for a deeper engagement with the text's philosophical underpinnings.

References

Hemingway, E. (1933). A Clean, Well-Lighted Place. Scribner.