Loneliness and Alienation

In “A Clean Well-Lighted Place,” Hemingway successfully captures the essence of loneliness, and the terrible impact it can have on various people’s lives. He focuses on the differing attitudes of the older and younger waiter towards the old man. It is apparent that because of the generation gap between the two waiters, they cannot see eye-to-eye on the importance of the café to the old man and to others.

Hemingway expresses the theme of loneliness and alienation through the images of lightness and darkness. The lighting of the café represents a haven for those who fear the darkness or the unknown. Because the old man is deaf, he is already separated from the world on one level. To add to his suffering, he has also lost his wife. He and the older waiter prefer the “clean, well-lighted café” to bodegas because it provides them an escape from their worlds of pain. Bars are normally dirty and dimly lit, inviting in the darkness, reminding the old man and the older waiter of the “nothing” that consumes them. They stay up through the night because, “[They are] lonely (35).” Unlike the younger waiter, they have nothing to go home to other than an empty bed. When Hemingway first introduces the old man, he is sitting, “in the shadow of the leaves of the tree…against the electric light (1).” Although the man finds comfort in the lighting of the café, I feel as though he sits in the shadows of the tree because they hide his old age, and the suffering he is experiencing.

The younger waiter represents a generation that is utterly self-consumed and living for the present. He has a wife, a job, and above all, youth. When talking about the old man to the older waiter, he cannot understand why a man with so much money would try to kill himself. He implies that the only thing that truly measures one’s happiness or success is money. When the older waiter asks the young man why the old man attempted suicide, he says it was nothing. The older waiter questions how he knew it was nothing, and the young man responds with, “He has plenty of money (7).” The younger waiter does not see past the material world. He cannot sympathize with the old man because he has not experienced his pain. The younger waiter represents those who discard the old as being an annoyance and inconvenience when he says to the older waiter, “An old man is a nasty thing (42)….”He should have killed himself last week (17).”

The older waiter recognizes the differences between him and his counterpart. He realizes that the younger waiter will not be able to understand the full capacity of loneliness until he has experienced it. He says to the young man, “We are of two different kinds….It is not only a question of youth and confidence …Each night I am reluctant to close up because there may be some one who needs the café (71).” The older waiter stays up through the night just like the old man because he too, prefers the light. He was not afraid of the darkness, he simply could not handle the emptiness in his life—“it was a nothing that he knew too well (76).” Both he and the old man realize that there is nothing waiting for them in their futures other than more pain, loneliness, and alienation. The old man tries to temporarily suppress his pain by drinking his nights away. He cannot rest peacefully without the pain of loneliness eating away at him. We see at the beginning of the story that he tried to escape the pain by committing suicide but was prevented from doing so by his niece.

The older waiter understands loneliness and the terrible toll it can take upon people. He wants the café to be a refuge for the lonely, and be there when they need help. The café represents a place where people can come to escape and provide them an antidote to their suffering. The older waiter rises above his status, and in his own quiet way is a representative of a higher being that is there to serve when needed. The older waiter suffers just as the old man does, however, he does not let it drive him to the point of suicide. “After all,” he says at the end, “it is probably only insomnia (85).” (747)