HEMINGWAY
HEMINGWAY“A Clean, Well Lighted Place” is one of Ernest Hemingway’s short stories that was written in 1933. Ernest Hemingway lived an extraordinary life. He was able to witness three wars and along the way, Ernest Hemingway became one of the greatest American novelists of the 19th Century, not to mention one of the greatest short story writers of any nation or period. Some of Ernest Hemingway’s best writing often deals with the tragic areas of man’s experience with violent death and lost love. The struggles of men and women and how they maintained their dignity in the face of personal crisis and battle was Ernest Hemingway’s main focus. Hemingway called dignity in the face of personal crisis “grace under pressure.” And that’s what he lived for. But although Ernest Hemingway was a very talented writer, he lived a deeply troubled life and often he would doubt himself and his ability to write. The tension and struggles of his life can often be read in his writing and “A Clean, Well Lighted Place” is one of those stories that does just that.
In “A Clean, Well Lighted Place,” there is an old man who drinks at a Café. The old man visits the Café often and every time he does, he leaves the Café very drunk. The old man is described by two waiters from the Café as being a rich suicidal drunk to just an old man who likes to drink at a Café. One waiter is displeased that the old man wishes to drink there while the other can understand why the old man does. Through the story, Hemingway uses the two waiters to describe the old man. It is always the older waiter who defends the old man from the younger one. At times it almost seems as if the older waiter understands what the old man is going through. That is why the older waiter can see why the old man goes to the Café. He knows that the old man goes to the Café not to eat but to sit down and drink his sorrows away. Even though the old man has money, he still is troubled by something. He is so troubled that at one point he tried to commit suicide by hanging himself only to be cut down by his own niece. The old man drinks brandy and almost finishes the bottle there at the Café. If it weren’t for the younger waiter taking the bottle away, the old man would have probably finished the bottle by himself.
Despite of being very drunk, the old man does not spill a drop of brandy onto the table where he sat. Most people, if not all, would have had a messy table if they had been drinking all night there. The table would have been...
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