Tall D (1999) The Where of Writing Hemingways Sense of Place Southern Review 35(2) 338
The Meaning and Aesthetic Moment of "A Make clean, Well-Lighted Identify"
Ernest Hemingway's simple manner of writing and his option of words make his 1933 short story A Clean, Well-Lighted Place seem very unproblematic with no figurative linguistic communication at the kickoff sight, where the writer even does not give name to his characters and the setting they inhabit. Yet, looking for a deeper insight, the reader is left with a higher level of understanding about the reality of life buried nether the darkness of depression arising from a sense of nothingness.
Hemingway'due south exposure to Globe War I (1914-eighteen), witnessing the people's expiry and suffering every bit along with his war wounds and his ain depression making him a heavy drinker has influenced his works, then that this short story is a reflective of the philosophical motility of existentialism in the mid-to-belatedly nineteenth century, when people in search of significant of life in the changed world subsequently World War I see no meaning and purpose in life, since they believe in that location is nothing, no God and no organized religion anymore.
Each character in the story, then, shows the issue of this pettiness in life and the search for meaning in different way but in the aforementioned place of café. The immature "waiter with a wife" is always in a bustle "to go home to bed" once his work is over in the café just to find the meaning by enjoying the present moment beside his wife. Then, he is dissatisfied past stating belatedly and is then impatient to join her wife that cruelly says to the old patron that he "should have killed [himself] concluding week", and it shows he does non care about other people and just selfishly wants to satisfy his own desires. Unlike the immature waiter, the old deaf patron, who is able to see the subversive effects of fourth dimension in modern era on love and self, tries to escape from this nightmare of nothingness of existence and life, past which he is haunted, through drinking or taking his life. The onetime patron who had once committed suicide only to be saved by his niece cut him downwards after being institute hung by a rope, prefers to stay at the quiet, make clean and well-lighted café late into the dark instead of going abode and enjoy his time by drinking which he finds to be a relief to his despair and emptiness, but when he is drunkard he "drinks without spilling" and walks "with dignity", which shows his cleanness and dignity does not permit him tolerate the unclean and darker or ill-lighted bars and "bodega [being] open all night long", since all he needs is some light in his life, even if the light in the pleasant bright café is a temporary manmade and artificial low-cal. For the old patron a "clean, well-lighted café", whose cleanliness and good lighting gives a sense of order not plant in the real world, is such an escape from the nada and pettiness of existential low. So, the café serves as a refuge from the nothingness of despair and deserted night, where he enjoys the pleasant scenery of "the shadows of the leaves of the tree made … [by] the electric lite" in the silence of night with no interrupting "music", the relaxing effect of which ceases the thoughts of meaninglessness and nothingness of life torturing his consciousness which leads to his "Fear for his soul.". Finally, the former single waiter who is dissatisfied with endmost the café to go home, finds meaning in life past working at the café, considering understanding the situation of people like quondam patron, he would prefer to keep the café open for "those who [cannot bear the darkness of earth and] need a low-cal for the night". So, the old waiter and the old patron both find the ritual and place by working and drinking respectively in cafe as a ways of protection against emptiness and meaninglessness they feel. But equally the old waiter is non allowed to keep the café open up, when he gets dwelling house, instead of proverb the Lord'southward Prayer, "Our Father who are in heaven, …", he laments, while replacing the Spanish word "zilch" – the word for 'nothing' – with the prayer's nouns, "Our zilch who art in cypher, …", only to question the existence of God and the idea of heaven by removing them in a existential statement nearly insufficiency of organized religion every bit a source of comfort, where the dark chaotic idea of pettiness leads to despair. He actually ridicules the reality of the religion every bit a source of meaning and comfort to homo life. This thought of nothingness is also emphasized in the old waiter's version of Hail Mary Prayer, where instead of saying "Hail Mary, Full of Grace, The Lord is with thee.", he replaces the nouns with the word 'nothing' to say, "Hail nothing full of nothing, nothing is with thee.", showing the extent of depression people suffer equally individuals. Thus, in response to his ain question, "What did he [the old patron] fearfulness.?", the old waiter says "Information technology was not fear …. It was a nothing that he [the former waiter] knew as well …. It was all a cypher and a man was aught also. It was only that [nothingness] and light was all it needed [to escape the symbolic darkness of reality at nighttime] and a certain cleanness and order.".
So in mod social club, where religion has been replaced past materialism as a source of condolement, a clean well-lighted café is constitute to be more comforting than reciting the prayer. However, in such a society coin cannot bring satisfaction and happiness, as the cause of old patron'due south despair is non considered to be the lack of coin as he "has plenty of money". Merely the cause of his despair is considered to be "nothing", i.east., his despair is with no cause, where "nothing" does not refers to actual tangible or material longings, merely rather to intangible longings. So it reflects a worldview that there is no meaning beyond the actual longings merely to make the intangible longings nothing but an illusion. So the cause of old patron'southward despair is that the life is made meaningless due to the lack of moral order in society in which he lives, where all is cipher, life is nothing and a human being is zero too . The scene of "a girl" in the street with "no head covering … [ironically] hurried beside him [a soldier]" in the street suggests that she is the immature waiter's wife working every bit a prostitute. This makes the old waiter joke with waiter request him if he has any "fearfulness of going home earlier … usual hour [when his wife will be engaged in some other relationship?" only to brand the immature waiter experience insulted. So this scene is an example of a chaotic meaningless world, governed by a set of ambiguous and inadequate rules flawed by pettiness. Simply taking morality equally a distinguishing human being characteristic, existential nihilism of the twentieth century which analyzes the existence based on the thought that in that location is no meaning in life and the world is of no moral order, looks at the way humanity experiences human being condition, and the style the notion of free will and man preferences and our personal choices influence the man sense of meaning in life. This philosophical systems of existentialism and nihilism, so, have influenced the writing of authors including Hemingway afterwards Earth State of war I, so that Hemmingway'south nihilistic worldview and his questioning of the life and experiences gives an existentialist connotation to his work, where Hemingway'due south nihilistic doubt on the existence of significant expressed by the repetition of the words "aught" and "goose egg" brings the reader in contact with the theme of the story suggesting a horrible truth – the darkness of reality that life is of nothing meaningful. Hemingway's use of repletion throughout the story by repeating images of "the shadows on the leaves" and such words every bit "clean and pleasant", and bright and "well-lighted", so, is suggestive of a cure and remedy for the emptiness and darkness of the dark.
The story, then, is taking place in a modern lodge equipped with electrical light as the café is a well-lighted place, in which the characters find more comfort and gild than in prayer due to the world'due south lack of moral gild. Then we encounter the influence of industrialism and science on spiritual moral conventionalities, while the characters still struggle with emptiness of modern club where religion has been replaced by materialism equally a mere source of comfort, when they refuse traditional morality and search the lost significant in modest materialistic pleasures at home in bed or in the café , while even money does not bring them happiness. Considering this short story was published during the Great Depression (1929-39) in the time of economic crisis and depression, the story questions the value of work and money, while the suicidal endeavor of the one-time patron who "has plenty of money" is reflective of this idea. So, modernism is greatly affected from the rise of destructive World War I, bringing death and despair to the world, to the ascension of Industrialization, which seems to have gone wrong with its misuse of engineering in state of war. The desire to correct the social inadequate rules flawed by nothingness is mirrored in the aesthetics and the championship of Hemingway's story A Clean, Well-Lighted Identify. Nevertheless, the dialogues are kept curt, while the writer does non provide the reader with much explanation only to transfer the same sense of nothingness that is experienced past the characters.
Source: https://thinkingcriticallyintheworldofliterature.wordpress.com/2020/09/29/ernest-hemingways-a-clean-well-lighted-place/
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