He too appreciates the quality of good light but it is also necessary that the place be clean and pleasant. Certainly, you do not want music (146). The younger waiter is just a typical young man, he is impatient and only cares about getting home to his wife as early as possible. Having to stay late and serve the old man drinks irritates the young waiter, and he doesn’t care that it shows. He doesn’t understand like the older waiter nor seem to care why the old man likes to stay so long.
The older waiter knows that not much separates himself from the old man in the café, and that it is his job to provide for this man a place of comfort and security. What the young waiter doesn’t understand that the older waiter does is this concept of life. The older waiter says that he has never “had confidence” (13) and he is no longer “young” (13). When people are young they feel as though they are invincible, that there is no way anything in this world can hurt them. Take a look at all the daredevils of this world and you see that most if not all are young and reckless.
The old man who had no wife is obviously alone. The young waiter thinks he is the opposite of the old man because he believes he is not lonely. He is oblivious to why the old man is like that and
The waiter who was in a hurry was youthful and confident. He had a wife at home and probably kids and his job at the café. He seems annoyed at the old man and thinks that people like him are better than people like the old man, while not understanding the reason for the old man’s despair. His view is that anyone who is financially stable can’t be miserable. The young waiter is confident with hopes and dreams for the future and doesn’t have a minute to waste to get to them.
He hasn't eaten since breakfast and late at night while he waits for Corley to return with money, he orders a meal of peas and vinegar with a bottle of ginger beer for his dinner. He simply doesn't have the money for a proper meal. And, his future looks dismal: it will only get worse. By showing this detail, readers are not as quick to judge Joyce's character, and while we certainly can't like this leech, we can perhaps understand and view him in a sympathetic light. In "Clay," the older unmarried character Maria lives a life of diligent sacrifice for a pittance.
Some lived in it and never felt it but he knew it all was nada y pues nada y nada y pues nada." - Ernest Hemmingway In the story "A clean, well-lighted place" there is two waiters, in a cafe, talking about an old, deaf man who is a nightly customer. There is a deeper theme portrayed in the story; the meaning of life, if there is one. As said by the website Bookrags.com, “There are three main characters in ‘A Clean, Well-Lighted Place,’ and each represents a different view on the meaning of life”(Bookrags.com). This story illustrates the different meanings of each person’s time they are given in their lives.
In a small pueblo in the country of Spain, a café exists to act as a refuge to those who need a break from the hardships of reality. In the midst of a late night at work at the café, two waiters discuss over whether or not to close up early. At first glance, the debate seems like a mundane conversation, but upon further examination, it reveals much more. Furthermore, in “A Clean Well-Lighted Place,” Hemingway channels the separation between the social lifestyles of the young and the loneliness that comes with age through his characters and their conversations. A great deal of the story’s depth comes out of the results of conversations between the characters.
There was an old man who tried committing suicide but failed, and he decides to go get drunk which is understandable. If somebody is too much in despair to the point that they attempt suicide, most likely they wouldn’t want to be in a sober state of mind. I found the younger waiter completely insensitive, he told the older waiter “I’m sleepy now. I never get unto bed before three o’clock. He should have killed himself last week.” (Hemingway 143) and then he has the nerve to tell the man himself that he should have killed himself.
The story was called “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place”, by Hemmingway. It is a discourse of a conversation between two waiters, one who is young and the other who is old, preparing to close shop as they study an old, drunk deaf man, savouring the Mana from his glass, who had just attempted suicide that previous week. Their conversation shifts into one of about a certain kind of loneliness. The young man wishes to return to his wife and insists they send him home. He is cruel towards him, “He should have killed himself
You could say that the waiter is struggling to make ends meet with money and that feels the old man has no reason to kill himself, that the old man has no problems due to this vast amount of money he has, you could say that the younger waiter is almost kind of jealous of the old man and sees that this old man is just wasting away in the café. This is further backed up when the younger waiter says “He’ll stay all night” and “I’m sleepy now I never get into bed before three o’clock” by this point you