A CLean Well Lighted Place

"A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" Hemingway wrote this story in 1933. It details an evening's interaction between two waiters, and their differing perspectives of life. Hemingway uses an old man as a patron to demonstrate the waiter's philosophies. Hemingway is also visible in the story as the old man, someone who society says should be content, but has a significant empty feeling inside. What follows is a line-by-line analysis, putting emphasis on the philosophies of the waiters. …

…also possible to see Hemingway in this story as the cafe's old patron. The old man is someone that has become a success by society's standards, but not by his own. The old man is rich, just as Hemingway was famous, but neither of the two was ever completely satisfied. Hemingway is represented as someone always on safari, or some other showful pastime, perhaps trying just to keep busy, to stay away from the nada.