A Clean, Well-Lighted Place

Born in 1899 in Oak Park, Illinois, near Chicago, Ernest Hemingway was the second of six
children. His father, a doctor, loved hunting and fishing and quickly taught these loves to young
Hemingway. He gave Hemingway his first gun when he was just ten. When Hemingway
finished high school, World War I was raging across Europe, and he wanted to enlist in the
army. His father forbade him from enlisting, however, so Hemingway became a reporter for the
Kansas City Star, where he began to hone his writing skills. Eventually, he grew restless and
became an ambulance driver for the Red Cross in Italy. After being injured, he recovered at a
Milan hospital, where he had an affair with a nurse. He returned home in 1919 but moved to
Paris in 1921 to work as a reporter for the Toronto Daily Star. There, he joined a group of
expatriate writers and artists who would come to define the Lost Generation, men and women
whose early adulthood was defined by World War I. Gertrude Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra
Pound, and Pablo Picasso were among his circle of friends and colleagues.
Hemingway moved back to the United States in 1928, setting up a home in Key West, Florida,
where he lived for more than ten years. In 1937, he went to Spain as a reporter to cover the
Spanish Civil War for the North American Newspaper Alliance and eventually published For
Whom the Bell Tolls (1940), a novel based on his experiences. In the years that followed, he
moved around a great deal, first to Havana, Cuba, and then back to Europe to contribute to the
war effort in World War II.
Hemingway published his first novel, The Torrents of Spring, in 1925 and The Sun Also Rises in
1926. The latter novel was his first literary success and coincided with the end of his marriage
to Hadley Richardson. Hemingway went on to marry three more times and publish many more
novels, including A Farewell to Arms (1929), based on his experiences in Italy during World
War I, and The Old Man and the Sea (1952), for which he won the Pulitzer Prize. He also
published many collections of short stories, including In Our Time (1925), Men Without
Women (1927), and Winner Take Nothing (1933) in which A Clean, Well-Lighted Place first
appeared. The range, skill, and influence of Hemingways work won him the Nobel Prize in
Literature in 1954.
A Clean, Well-Lighted Place is one of Hemingways most acclaimed short stories, as much
for its exquisitely sparse writing style as for its expertly rendered existentialist themes.
Existentialism is a philosophical movement whose adherents believe that life has no higher
purpose and that no higher being exists to help us make sense of it. Instead, humans are left
alone to find meaning in the world and their lives. In A Clean, Well-Lighted Place, the older
waiter sums up the despair that drives him and others to brightly lit cafs by saying simply, It
is a nothing.
Despite his great literary successes, Hemingway struggled with depression, alcoholism, and
related health problems throughout his life. In 1960, Hemingway and his fourth wife, Mary
Welsh, moved to Ketchum, Idaho, and Hemingway began treatments for depression. He died
from self-inflicted gunshot wounds in 1961 at age sixty-one.

An old man sits alone at night in a caf. He is deaf and likes when the night grows still. Two
waiters watch the old man carefully because they know he wont pay if he gets too drunk. One
waiter tells the other that the old man tried to kill himself because he was in despair. The other
waiter asks why he felt despair, and the first waiter says the reason was nothing because the
man has a lot of money.
The waiters look at the empty tables and the old man, who sits in the shadow of a tree. They see
a couple walk by, a soldier with a girl. One of the waiters says the soldier had better be careful
about being out because the guards just went by. The old man taps his glass against its saucer
and asks the younger waiter for a brandy. The younger waiter tells him hell get drunk, then
goes back and tells the older waiter that the old man will stay all night. The younger waiter says
he never goes to bed earlier than 3 a.m. and that the old man should have killed himself. He
takes the old man his brandy. As he pours it, he tells the old man that he should have killed
himself, but the old man just indicates that he wants more brandy in the glass.
The younger waiter tells the older waiter that the old man is drunk, then asks again why he tried
to kill himself. The older waiter says he doesnt know. The younger waiter asks how he did it.
The older waiter says he tried to hang himself and his niece found him and got him down. The
younger waiter asks why she got him down, and the older waiter says they were concerned
about his soul. The waiters speculate on how much money the old man has and decide hes
probably age eighty.
The younger waiter says he wishes the old man would leave so that he can go home and go to
bed with his wife. The older waiter says that the old man was married at one time. The younger
waiter says a wife wouldnt do him any good, but the older waiter disagrees. The younger
waiter points out that the old man has his niece, then says he doesnt want to be an old man.
The older waiter points out that the old man is clean and drinks neatly. The younger waiter says
again that he wishes the old man would leave.
The old man indicates that he wants another brandy, but the younger waiter tells him theyre
closing. The old man pays and walks away. The older waiter asks the younger waiter why he
didnt let him drink more because its not even 3 a.m. yet, and the younger waiter says he wants
to go home. The older waiter says an hour doesnt make much difference. The younger waiter
says that the old man can just drink at home, but the older waiter says its different. The
younger waiter agrees.
The older waiter jokingly asks if the younger waiter is afraid to go home early. The younger
waiter says he has confidence. The older waiter points out that he also has youth and a job,
whereas the older waiter has only a job. The older waiter says that he likes to stay at cafs very
late with the others who are reluctant to go home and who need light during the nighttime. The
younger waiter says he wants to go home, and the older waiter remarks that they are very
different. The older waiter says he doesnt like to close the caf in case someone needs it. The
younger waiter says there are bars to go to, but the older waiter says that the caf is clean and
well lit. They wish each other good night.
The older waiter continues thinking to himself about how important it is for a caf to be clean

and well lit. He thinks that music is never good to have at a caf and that standing at a bar isnt
good either. He wonders what hes afraid of, deciding its not fear but just a familiar nothing.
He says two prayers but substitutes nada (Spanish for nothing) for most of the words.
When he arrives at a bar, he orders a drink and tells the bartender that the bar isnt clean. The
bartender offers another drink, but the waiter leaves. He doesnt like bars, preferring cafs. He
knows that he will now go home and fall asleep when the sun comes up. He thinks he just has
insomnia, a common problem.

The Old Man - A deaf man who likes to drink at the caf late into the night. The old man likes
the shadows of the leaves on the well-lit caf terrace. Rumor has it that he tried to hang
himself, he was once married, he has a lot of money, and his niece takes care of him. He often
gets drunk at the caf and leaves without paying.
The Older Waiter - A compassionate man who understands why the old man may want to stay
late at the caf. The older waiter enjoys staying late at cafs as well. He thinks its very
important for a caf to be clean and well lit, and he sees the caf as a refuge from despair.
Rather than admit that he is lonely, he tells himself that he has insomnia.
Read an in-depth analysis of The Older Waiter.
The Younger Waiter - An impatient young man who cares only about getting home to his
wife. The younger waiter is usually irritated with the old man because he must stay late and
serve him drinks. He does not seem to care why the old man stays so long. His only concern is
leaving as quickly as possible.
Read an in-depth analysis of The Younger Waiter.

The Older Waiter

Like the old man, the older waiter likes to stay late at cafs, and he understands on a deep level
why they are both reluctant to go home at night. He tries to explain it to the younger waiter by
saying, He stays up because he likes it, but the younger waiter dismisses this and says that
the old man is lonely. Indeed, both the old man and the older waiter are lonely. The old man
lives alone with only a niece to look after him, and we never learn what happened to his wife.
He drinks alone late into the night, getting drunk in cafs. The older waiter, too, is lonely. He
lives alone and makes a habit of staying out late rather than going home to bed. But there is
more to the older waiters insomnia, as he calls it, than just loneliness. An unnamed,
unspecified malaise seems to grip him. This malaise is not a fear or dread, as the older waiter
clarifies to himself, but an overwhelming feeling of nothingnessan existential angst about his
place in the universe and an uncertainty about the meaning of life. Whereas other people find
meaning and comfort in religion, the older waiter dismisses religion as nadanothing. The
older waiter finds solace only in clean, well-lit cafs. There, life seems to make sense.
The older waiter recognizes himself in the old man and sees his own future. He stands up for
the old man against the younger waiters criticisms, pointing out that the old man might benefit
from a wife and is clean and neat when he drinks. The older waiter has no real reason to take
the old mans side. In fact, the old man sometimes leaves the caf without paying. But the
possible reason for his support becomes clear when the younger waiter tells the older waiter
that he talks like an old man too. The older waiter is aware that he is not young or confident,
and he knows that he may one day be just like the old manunwanted, alone, and in despair.
Ultimately, the older waiter is reluctant to close the caf as much for the old mans sake as for
his own because someday hell need someone to keep a caf open late for him.
The Younger Waiter
Brash and insensitive, the younger waiter cant see beyond himself. He readily admits that he
isnt lonely and is eager to return home where his wife is waiting for him. He doesnt seem to
care that others cant say the same and doesnt recognize that the caf is a refuge for those who
are lonely. The younger waiter is immature and says rude things to the old man because he
wants to close the caf early. He seems unaware that he wont be young forever or that he may
need a place to find solace later in life too. Unlike the older waiter, who thinks deeply
perhaps too deeplyabout life and those who struggle to face it, the younger waiter
demonstrates a dismissive attitude toward human life in general. For example, he says the old
man should have just gone ahead and killed himself and says that he wouldnt want to be that
old. He himself has reason to live, and his whole life is ahead of him. You have everything,
the older waiter tells him. The younger waiter, immersed in happiness, doesnt really
understand that he is lucky, and he therefore has little compassion or understanding for those
who are lonely and still searching for meaning in their lives.

Themes
Life as Nothingness

In A Clean, Well-Lighted Place, Hemingway suggests that life has no meaning and that man
is an insignificant speck in a great sea of nothingness. The older waiter makes this idea as clear
as he can when he says, It was all a nothing and man was a nothing too. When he substitutes
the Spanish word nada (nothing) into the prayers he recites, he indicates that religion, to which
many people turn to find meaning and purpose, is also just nothingness. Rather than pray with
the actual words, Our Father who art in heaven, the older waiter says, Our nada who art in
nadaeffectively wiping out both God and the idea of heaven in one breath. Not everyone is
aware of the nothingness, however. For example, the younger waiter hurtles through his life
hastily and happily, unaware of any reason why he should lament. For the old man, the older
waiter, and the other people who need late-night cafs, however, the idea of nothingness is
overwhelming and leads to despair.
The Struggle to Deal with Despair

The old man and older waiter in A Clean, Well-Lighted Place struggle to find a way to deal
with their despair, but even their best method simply subdues the despair rather than cures it.
The old man has tried to stave off despair in several unsuccessful ways. We learn that he has
money, but money has not helped. We learn that he was once married, but he no longer has a
wife. We also learn that he has unsuccessfully tried to commit suicide in a desperate attempt to
quell the despair for good. The only way the old man can deal with his despair now is to sit for
hours in a clean, well-lit caf. Deaf, he can feel the quietness of the nighttime and the caf, and
although he is essentially in his own private world, sitting by himself in the caf is not the same
as being alone.
The older waiter, in his mocking prayers filled with the word nada, shows that religion is not a
viable method of dealing with despair, and his solution is the same as the old mans: he waits
out the nighttime in cafs. He is particular about the type of caf he likes: the caf must be well
lit and clean. Bars and bodegas, although many are open all night, do not lessen despair because
they are not clean, and patrons often must stand at the bar rather than sit at a table. The old man
and the older waiter also glean solace from routine. The ritualistic caf-sitting and drinking
help them deal with despair because it makes life predictable. Routine is something they can
control and manage, unlike the vast nothingness that surrounds them.
Motifs
Loneliness

Loneliness pervades A Clean, Well-Lighted Place and suggests that even though there are
many people struggling with despair, everyone must struggle alone. The deaf old man, with no
wife and only a niece to care for him, is visibly lonely. The younger waiter, frustrated that the
old man wont go home, defines himself and the old man in opposites: Hes lonely. Im not
lonely. Loneliness, for the younger waiter, is a key difference between them, but he gives no
thought to why the old man might be lonely and doesnt consider the possibility that he may

one day be lonely too. The older waiter, although he doesnt say explicitly that he is lonely, is
so similar to the old man in his habit of sitting in cafs late at night that we can assume that he
too suffers from loneliness. The older waiter goes home to his room and lies in bed alone,
telling himself that he merely suffers from sleeplessness. Even in this claim, however, he
instinctively reaches out for company, adding, Many must have it. The thought that he is not
alone in having insomnia or being lonely comforts him.
Symbols
The Caf

The caf represents the opposite of nothingness: its cleanliness and good lighting suggest order
and clarity, whereas nothingness is chaotic, confusing, and dark. Because the caf is so
different from the nothingness the older waiter describes, it serves as a natural refuge from the
despair felt by those who are acutely aware of the nothingness. In a clean, brightly lit caf,
despair can be controlled and even temporarily forgotten. When the older waiter describes the
nothingness that is life, he says, It was only that and light was all it needed and a certain
cleanness and order. The i t in the sentence is never defined, but we can speculate about the
waiters meaning: although life and man are nothing, light, clealiness, and order can serve as
substance. They can help stave off the despair that comes from feeling completely unanchored
to anyone or anything. As long as a clean, well-lighted caf exists, despair can be kept in check.

Hemingways Economy of Style

A Clean, Well-Lighted Place is arguably not only one of Hemingways best short stories but
also a story that clearly demonstrates the techniques of Hemingways signature writing style.
Hemingway is known for his economic prosehis writing is minimalist and sparse, with few
adverbs or adjectives. He includes only essential information, often omitting background
information, transitions, and dialogue tags such as he said or she said. He often uses
pronouns without clear antecedents, such as using the word it without clarifying what i t refers
to. Hemingway applies the iceberg principle to his stories: only the tip of the story is visible
on the page, while the rest is left underwaterunsaid. Hemingway also rarely specifies which
waiter is speaking in the story because he has deemed such clarification unnecessary. The
essential element is that two waiters are discussing a drunk old manthe rest can be omitted
according to Hemingways economy of style. When the older waiter contemplates the idea of
nothingness, Hemingway loads the sentences with vague pronouns, never clarifying what they
refer to: It was all a nothing. . . . It was only that. . . . Some lived in it . . . Although these
lines are somewhat confusing, the confusion is the point. This nothingness cant be defined
clearly, no matter how many words are used. Hemingway uses fewer words and lets the effect
of his style speak for itself.

The Deceptive Pacing of the Story

Hemingway does not waste words on changing scenes or marking the passage of time, leaving
it up to us to keep track of whats happening and the storys pacing. For example, only a brief
conversation between the waiters takes place between the time when the younger waiter serves
the old man a brandy and the time when the old man asks for another. Hemingway is not
suggesting that the old man has slugged back the brandy quickly. In fact, the old man stays in
the caf for a long time. Time has lapsed here, but Hemingway leaves it up to us to follow the
pace of the story. The pace of A Clean, Well-Lighted Place may seem swift, but the action of
the story actually stretches out for much longer than it appears to. The sitting, drinking, and
contemplating that take place are languid actions. We may read the story quickly, but the
scenes themselves are not quick.
Just as Hemingway doesnt waste words by trying to slow down his scenes, he also refrains
from including unnecessary transitions. For example, when the older waiter leaves the caf and
mulls over the idea of nothingness, he finishes his parody of prayer and, without any transition
that suggests that he was walking, we suddenly find him standing at a bar. Hemingway lets the
waiters thoughts serve as the transition. When he writes, He smiled and stood before a bar,
were meant to understand that the waiter had been walking and moving as he was thinking to
himself. And when the waiter orders a drink at the bar, the bartender offers him another just
two sentences later. Again, Hemingway is not suggesting that the waiter gulps his drink.
Instead, he conveys only the most essential information in the scene.

Existentialism and the Lost Generation

The term Lost Generation refers to the writers and artists living in Paris after World War I. The
violence of World War I, also called the Great War, was unprecedented and invalidated
previous ideas about faith, life, and death. Traditional values that focused on God, love, and
manhood dissolved, leaving Lost Generation writers adrift. They struggled with moral and
psychological aimlessness as they searched for the meaning of life in a changed world. This
search for meaning and these feelings of emptiness and aimlessness reflect some of the
principle ideas behind existentialism. Existentialism is a philosophical movement rooted in the
work of the Danish philosopher Sren Kierkegaard, who lived in the mid-1800s. The movement
gained popularity in the mid-1900s thanks to the work of the French intellectuals Jean-Paul
Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and Albert Camus, including Sartres Being and Nothingness
(1943). According to existentialists, life has no purpose, the universe is indifferent to human
beings, and humans must look to their own actions to create meaning, if it is possible to create
meaning at all. Existentialists consider questions of personal freedom and responsibility.
Although Hemingway was writing years before existentialism became a prominent cultural
idea, his questioning of life and his experiences as a searching member of the Lost Generation
gave his work existentialist overtones.

1. Each night I am reluctant to close up because there may be some one who needs the
caf.
The older waiter makes this comment near the end of the story when he and the younger waiter
are about to leave the caf, and it reveals his own loneliness and despair. Until this point, the
old man seemed to be the only one who wanted to stay at the caf, but now the older waiter
seems to need the caf as well. A few lines before this, he reveals that he is someone who likes
to stay at cafs late into the night, so his reluctance has two meanings. First, he understands
why the old man and others may want or need to stay late, and he keeps the caf open as a
gesture of kindness and generosity. Second, he himself needs the caf, so he is reluctant to
close it because he, like the old man and others, will then be without a place to sit and wait out
the night. While the younger waiter is rushing to get home, the older waiter leaves the caf
sadly, once again displaced and alone.
2. What did he fear? It was not fear or dread, It was a nothing that he knew too well. It was
all a nothing and a man was nothing too. It was only that and light was all it needed and a
certain cleanness and order.
This quotation appears near the end of the story, just after the older waiter leaves the caf, and
it explains the nature of what afflicts the older waiter and the old man, as well as all those
people who want to stay in cafs late at night. We learn that this affliction is not fear or dread,
and from the way the older waiter phrases his thoughts, we know that the affliction is not
something that is clear, concrete, or easily described. Hemingway fills this passage with the
vague pronouns it and that, never clarifying exactly what it and that refer to. We learn only that
the affliction is a nothing. The older waiter repeats nothing over and over again,
emphasizing the idea.
The lack of specificity in this passage is confusing, but Hemingway is being vague on purpose.
By using vague pronouns and saying only that everything is nothing, he conveys the idea that
the problem keeping the older waiter and the old man awake at night is related to something
huge, even infinite, something beyond what language can describe: the purpose and meaning of
life. Existential questions such as the meaning of life and existence make the night a dangerous,
empty place for the people who dare to consider them. Only a clean, well-lighted caf provides
a refuge from these thoughts.

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Table of Contents
in-depth analysis of The Older Waiter.
in-depth analysis of The Younger Waiter.