The Importance of Elements:Ernest Hemingway's "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place."

Ernest Hemingway's short story "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" is one about loneliness and half way searches for friendship/ companionship. The author uses "the clean, well-lighted place" as a place of belongingness and acceptance in a world of loneliness, darkness, and cruelty. In this story, the characters, setting, and tone of the story all work together to express its theme of the continual search for the purpose of life. The characters in the story seem quite …

…home. He downplays his lack of sleep and drinking after work as being insomnia. "He would lie in the bed and finally, with daylight, he would go to sleep. After all, he said to himself, it is probably only insomnia. Many must have it" (178). However, deep down, he knows that it's a much more serious situation than just that, perhaps it is alcoholism, lack of happiness in life, or maybe it really is just insomnia.