What Is The Theme Of A Clean Well Lighted Place By Ernest Hemingway

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Ernest Miller Hemingway was born on July 21, 1899 in the suburbs of Chicago in Oak Park, Illinois to loving parents, Clarence and Grace Hemingway. Starting from an early age, Hemingway expressed his passions for writing poetry, newspaper articles, and fictions at his local high school in Oak Park. Shortly after graduating, Oak Park High School, Hemingway worked for six months as a reporter for the Kansas City Star. After his reporting career for the Kansas City Star, eighteen-year-old Hemingway went overseas and assisted the Italian Army as an ambulance driver during World War 1. During his time in Italy at war, he severely injured his feet and legs and therefore returned home to spend time writing and he eventually fell in love. After less …show more content…
The two lovebirds moved to Paris where Hemingway pursued a writing career and worked as a foreign correspondent. While living in Paris, Hemingway’s style of writing was strongly impacted by the modernist writers, novelists, and artists of the nineteenth century. The short story novelist divorced his wife, Hadley, after only 6 years of marriage and was remarried three times. Hemingway’s love life and life experiences impacted his writing. Intentional parallels between Ernest Hemingway’s life and the short story, “A Clean Well-Lighted Place,” are revealed as he introduces several messages within the theme and uses the setting as a symbol.
Readers can see numerous striking parallels between the author’s life and the lives of the characters within the story. “A Clean Well-Lighted Place” is a story detailing the interactions between two waiters who are working late one night at a Café. The two waiters are stuck working late because their
…show more content…
Hemingway experienced and saw first hand effects of World War 1. People lacked both faith and religion as a result of World War 1. The public and spiritual institutions that have bounded society together for centuries made people come to the conclusion that the social, government, and religious institutions are not trustworthy. People who lived during the time period of the nineteenth century effected Hemingway’s theme for his short story because he wrote about how life was meaningless and referenced “nada.” Hemingway used parallels within his life in the story on purpose. Not as a cry for help, but merely a commentary on the little things in his life and to show the importance of having someplace comfortable to go. Hemingway uses the setting and light as a symbol to illustrate that during dark times there is still hope. Hemingway’s pessimistic outlook on the world suggests that people who are happy and content with life inevitably turn out to be lonely and dissatisfied with life. Although Hemingway has a negative attitude about the world, it does not mean that life itself is has no meaning. It merely means that each and every individual is in control and can determine the purpose of his or her life. We must set our own individual principles and values and live by them; that is what keeps us from falling into

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