A Clean Well-Lighted Place by Ernest Hemingway is a story of two waiters at a cafe having a discussion late at night about an old man that frequently sits at the cafe late at night and drinks. However there are certain undertones that lead me to believe that this is not so much a story of three men, but of the aging process of one man. One of the waiters is a young man with a wife, and the other is a middle aged unmarried man. they have a running commentary throughout the story about the old man, and how they feel about him.
The beginning of the story is mostly concerned with the viewpoint of the young waiter. AS the reader we see what the young waiter is all about before anyone else. Hemingway chose to expose the chracters in a chronological fassion, which makes sense because that allows the reader to look at the three men's lifes as one life from youth to being old. One of the topics that the two waiters discuss is that the old man tried to commit suicied. This is the first example of the ignorance of youth. When the young waiter was asked why the old man was in despair, he said that there was no reason, and that he had plenty of money. The young waiter implies that if there is money, than there is no reason to despair. Tha
n again, when the suicide is revisited the young waiter askes how much money the old man has. This is in contrast to the older waiter who is asking about who stopped him from killing himself. The young man again is concerned with money, where the older waiter is thinking more about who cares for the old man. The young waiter's self centered attitude is later exposed in dialogue when he says that and hour of time means more to him than tot he old man. At this point the older waiter starts to disagee, and th reader starts to find out the dynamics of that character.
The older waiter represents the stage in a man's life when that man realizes that they are no longer young, but are not yet old. When a man starts to slow down and really look at what they have besides the worldly posessions. They realize that even if all the things they own will be there forever, they sure won't, and they can't take it with them. The meaning of life starts to shift with the point of view. The older waiter says at one point "You have youth, confidence, and a job. You have everything." When the younger waiter asks what what he doesn't have, the older man says that he never had confidence and he is not young. This implies that that's a
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