A Clean, Well-Lighted Place by Hemingway

A Clean, Well-lighted Place was the best short story covered on the syllabus this semester. This is because at first the short story seems to be a very simple, unemotional, and almost unfinished. When you look deeper than the surface you can see how meaningful the story truly is. Hemingway’s word choice brings the readers to a higher level of understanding the reality of life. It is a story about giving up on life, as the characters are not able to find trust in God. As in the story there is a theme of no hope, no solace, no god, and the best thing we can do is find artificial light.  The sad truth about this story is it shows the loss of faith that at the end of our lives there is nothingness darkness and death. The truth is buried underneath the story's emotional darkness, eventual isolation, and existential depression caused by the "nada", the nothingness. For example the older waiter utters the following prayer mocking the Our Father prayer from the Catholic religion but the most powerful words are changed into nada, which is translated as nothingness. The old waiter has lost all faith in society in men since this short story was written after World War 1."Our nada who art in nada, nada be thy name thy kingdom nada thy will be nada in nada as it is in nada. Give us this nada our daily nada and nada us our nada as we nada our nadas and nada us not into nada but deliver us from nada; pues nada" (Hemingway 154). Hemingway leaves the readers with nothing to help them feel the nothingness or the "nada" to help the reader understand the connections between emotional darkness, isolation, and existential depression. Hemingway shows the only way to escape the pain of nothingness one has to find a clean place with artificial light that is where the title comes from A Clean, Well-Lighted Place.

Work Cited:

Kennedy, X. J., and Dana Gioia. Backpack Literature: an Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing. Pearson, 2016 Page 154 A Clean, Well-Lighted Place.

Picture 1 “Ernest Hemingway: A Clean, Well-Lighted Place.” Gatsby's Green Light, 30 Sept. 2013, rebeccaelizabethp.wordpress.com/2013/06/07/ernest-hemingway-a-clean-well-lighted-place/.

Picture 2 “A Clean Well Lighted Place by Ernest Hemingway.” Goodreads, Goodreads, 1 Apr. 1997, www.goodreads.com/book/show/553930.A_Clean_Well_Lighted_Place.