A Clean Well Lighted Place Hemingway Analysis

1.10 AS 90854
Reading Log 6
Jack Floyd XJN
Title- A Clean Well-Lighted Place
Author-Ernest Hemingway
Date Completed- 3/06/15
Type of Text- Short Story
Through the text ‘A Clean Well-Lighted Place’ we can very clearly see the ideas of Loneliness and living life in despair. I think that these themes are very relevant to the society around us. A lot of people are unable to form connections or lose connection in their lives. This leads to people being lonely, much like the main character in the story. An example of this in the text is when the two waiters at the café are sitting down, and talking to each other, they begin to talk about the old man, “He’s lonely. I am not lonely.” This is the younger waiter referring to the drunken old man; the only reason for the man being lonely is because he struggles with making connections as he is deaf.
I connected with the main character of the main character of the
text as I know that if you struggle to make connections your life becomes difficult and you begin got fall into despair, if you don’t make connections you can get lonely and this is not good causing people despair.
The old man quite clearly drown his despair by getting drunk every night at the small café, “He’s drunk every night,”. Also he obviously is in a lot of despair “Last week he tried to commit suicide”. This text is relevant to our society today because a lot of people live in despair for multiple different reasons. Some people will have lost a significant connection with someone in their lives of they may have a disability and therefore really struggle to make those connections needed to not be lonely. I think that the author portrayed a clear message by having the two waiters share very different opinions on the old man and his loneliness. “A wife would be no good to him
now,” this was stated by the younger waiter, “You can’t tell. He might be better with a wife,” This shows that the older waiter feels for the old man, as he himself is lonely. I think that this was an interesting way for the author to show that people can be lonely not only because they have a disability but sometimes just because they don’t have connections in their lives. This text made me think about how in our society many people may not show that they are lonely but they are, and that people can struggle to for connections with others because of things such as a disability. The text shows us that society can be the cause of peoples loneliness. This is shown through the young waiter rejecting the old man simply because he was deaf, this is considered a disability. People in society can reject others with disabilities casing them to feel lonely.
Through this text it is shown that people will attempt to drown their despair in things like alcohol or drugs. This is how the old man in this story dealt with his despair, but is not how our society should be dealing with their despair. This is common in our society. I think that this is wrong, that people feel that they need to be turning to these things to attempt to get away from the despair that they face. I think that society needs to reach out to people more in order to get people away from their despair and get them back on track.