"A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" - Literary Analysis

"A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" by Ernest Hemingway is written in omniscient limited point of view. The café symbolizes a place to come when someone is lonely. It is a clean, safe place for lonely people to visit. The protagonists in the story are the old man and the older waiter. The young, hurried waiter plays the role of the antagonist since he seems to have opposite opinions of the other men. The major conflict is between man and circumstance, in which the circumstance is loneliness. The old man is lonely because he lost his wife, and the older waiter lives alone and suffers from “insomnia.” The older waiter also believes that life is “nothing,” which appears to be a theme of the story.


I thought the story was well-written and easily relatable. If I ever feel lonely, I would prefer to be in a place that feels safe rather than sitting at home alone. I found the dialogue on p. 200 somewhat confusing, as the footer says that the same waiter may have spoken twice in a row. I am not sure that I agree with the “nothingness” of life. I believe that life is what you make of it, even if we all eventually end up alone.