28 pages • 56 minutes read
Ernest HemingwayA Clean, Well-Lighted Place
Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1926A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
The Cafe
The café in “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” is just that: a space that is pleasant and orderly. It symbolizes how community can counteract the modern era’s alienation. It is more than a gathering place and offers a brief escape from the harsh realities of the modern world and the feelings of despair that plague it. The older narrator speaks highly of the café and is hesitant to close it early because, at night, it offers a place for himself and others like him. It is a place where the old man stays “because he likes it” (289).
The café is clean, it is bright, and it is pleasant, which stands in stark contrast to the despair that plagues both the older men. As such, they are hesitant to leave each night. As a symbol, the café contrasts against the bars and bodegas in the story; all three are places where one can drink alcohol, but a café generally serves food as well, giving it nourishing connotations. The older waiter does not find the same solace in the bar he visits after his shift, remarking that the bar is “unpolished.” His assertion that cafés are “a very different thing” (291) underlines the café’s importance as a symbol of hope and community in the story.
Light and Dark
Light and dark are classic literary motifs representing positive and negative things, respectively. In this story, light represents hope and comfort. It is only in a well-lighted place that the older characters can briefly escape the nothingness and despair of their time. The old man seeks out the café with its “electric light” each night because it is an oasis in a dark world. The café’s light also comforts the older waiter and those like him who are searching for refuge amidst the dark of night or the surrounding nothingness. When he starts to think about what is important, he remarks to himself, “It was the light of course […]” (291). Additionally, when the older waiter gets home, he knows he will face insomnia, which will only go away with the light of day. Light is a sanctuary.
Opposingly, the dark represents the nothingness and bleakness prevalent in the early 1900s. It is the act of “turning off the electric light” that sends the older waiter into his stream-of-consciousness spiral, in which he explores nothingness and ultimately concludes his nada prayer by saying that “nothing is with thee” (291). It is the surrounding dark night that the older men seek to escape from when they come to the café. Once in the café, though, there are still shadows, remnants of the darkness and meaninglessness the older men are trying to escape. The old man sits “in the shadow the leaves of the tree made against the electric light” (288), indicating that though he is in a well-lighted place, he still carries the burden of the despair that haunts him.
Loneliness
Motifs of loneliness and what it means to be alone pervade “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place.” The younger waiter, in his naivety, attributes loneliness to merely not having a wife when he says, “I’m not lonely. I have a wife waiting in bed for me” (289). By this definition, both older characters must be lonely. Indeed they are, but their loneliness is an existential isolation that springs from the knowledge that even when surrounded by people, they must ultimately face their despair alone. The old man cannot rely upon the niece who looks after him to stave off his despair. He cannot rely upon society, and in these late hours, when people do not surround him, he is the most content. In the old man, this motif manifests in his sitting alone and his deafness, another layer of separation.
Similarly, the older waiter feels his loneliness most when he is alone among people. After he shuts down the café at night, he heads to a bar and reflects upon his despair and the ideas of nothing and nada. He recognizes that he is even without the company of religion and well-known prayers. His loneliness also manifests through his interaction with the bartender, who does not understand what he's trying to say and responds, “Otro loco mas” (another crazy one) (291).
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By Ernest Hemingway
