A Clean Well-Light Place Analysis

The short story “A Clean, Well-Lighted place” by Ernest Hemingway, is able to use the characters that it presents in the story, in order to give representation that once a person reaches a certain age, there's nothing left. The story is about two waiters, who are waiting for one old man to leave, before they can close the cafe. In the story are three main characters that the it revolves around, a young waiter, an older waiter, and some old man who recently attempted to kill himself. The characters are given little description, only small details are told about their lives, points that are only necessary to the meaning of the story. Their names are never even told, but that is because that is not the point, it is not who they are, but what their lives show about their age. Character motivation and importance in the world presents the reader with a better understanding of how eventually life will lead to nothingness.
Character presents how a lack of motivation in the older man. The most motivation presented in this story is either from the young waiter wanting to leave the cafe, and the older waiter wanting to leave it open for the old man. The younger waiter keeps pushing for the old man to leave, this is because he wants to get home to be with his wife and go to bed (2) . This waiter is young he has so …show more content…
How this is prevalent is seen in the way the old man is seen as by other people. When asked why the old man’s niece saved him from killing him, was as the waiter states “Fear for his soul” (1). Instead of saying she saved him because he was her uncle and she loved him, it was to save his soul, yet what this may say is how she may also believe that even she believes his time in his world his over, yet would not let him commit suicide because it is a sin. The old man is not seen important enough in this world to be saved for love, but rather to not doom his