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The fear of darkness is the fear of nothingness in which our lives are steeped. This central idea runs through Ernest Hemingways short story A Clean, Well-Lighted Place. The author tells a tale of an old man who sits in a clean, well-lit café in the late hours of the night past closing time. He is detested by a young, busy waiter and embraced by an older waiter, who, himself, finds an escape in a bar after his shift is over. The story A Clean, Well-Lighted Place suggests that life is devoid of meaning: it is a fleeting light that will ultimately mean nothing when it ends in the sea of darkness.
The setting of the short story helps Hemingway to convey the idea that life is a meaningless journey that ends in darkness. There are two primary settings in the story: the first setting is a well-lit café where the rich old man comes to drink. Here, the readers are exposed to the characters and their motivations through quick dialogue and discussion of the cafés patron by the two waiters. The second setting is a bright and pleasant bar to which the older waiter flees after work (Hemingway 17). The well-lit café and bar are juxtaposed with the darkness of the night. They are the refuge for the two older men in the story, who are nearing the darkness and nothingness of death. For them, these places symbolize life and company, even an unwilling one such as the young waiter and barman, while their own homes are drenched in darkness and loneliness.
Hemingway masterfully utilizes the characters to support the overarching idea of meaninglessness and the nothingness of life. None of the characters introduced in the story have names: they are named nothing. Furthermore, Hemingway utilizes the three main characters in the short story to portray the different perceptions of life and its different stages. Thus, the patron of the café and the older waiter who have no one else in their lives are lonely and desperate to stay in the light and illusion of company longer (Deepa and Chennai 18). Meanwhile, the younger waiter, who has a wife waiting for him at home, is desperate to leave the light of the café and go home. If the older men see no meaning in life due to their loneliness and want to escape it, the young waiter has not reached that stage of life yet.
The linear plot of the short story, as well as the absence of a climax or rising action, helps express the idea that life is bereft of meaning. Nothing significant happens in the story as it is a simple depiction of an ordinary evening in the lives of the waiters and the café patron (Maliha 376). The dialogue between the two servers reveals that they have to tend to the old man every evening. It can be assumed that every night after their shift, the young waiter goes home to his wife while the old waiter frequents the well-lit bar, echoing the routine of his patron. Thus, the tales events are nothing new to the waiters or the old man and hold no significance for them.
In summary, Ernest Hemingways A Clean, Well-Lighted Place is a story about the emptiness and meaninglessness of life that, like a fleeing light, is destined for ultimate darkness. The old café patron and the older waiter, who have no one in their lives, face the insignificance of their existence, fear the darkness that might soon take them, and, thus, cling to the light. In contrast, the young waiter hurries away from it as he is a long way away from confronting the darkness.
Works Cited
Deepa, M. Muthu, and Pallavaram Chennai. The Delineation of Despair through the Old Man and the Old Waiter in A Clean Well-Lighted Place: Ernest Hemingway. The Literary Herald, vol. 3, no. 6, 2018, pp. 17-20.
Hemingway, Ernest. Winner Take Nothing. Faded Page, 2015.
Maliha, Humyra A. American Modern Society and Young Generation with Reference to A Clean, Well-Lighted Place . International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research, vol. 11, no. 7, July 2020, pp. 376-377.
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