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Ernest Hemingway's A Clean Well-Lighted Place

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“A Clean Well-Lighted Place”: The Revelation of Nada At a first sight, Hemingway's "A Clean Well-Lighted Place" seems to be a very simple, unemotional, and almost unfinished short story. However, when readers look for deeper insight, they can find how meaningful this story is. The author's diction gradually brings the readers to a higher level of understanding the reality of life. The truth is buried underneath the storythe emotional darkness, eventual isolation, and existential depression caused by the nada, the nothingness. Emotional darkness is the first component that must be unfolded when analyzing the theme of the story. The symbol of an empty, meaningless life, emotional darkness, surrounds the old man and the older waiter. They both are victims of fear, inner …show more content…

Existential depression is yet another technique Hemingway uses to convey the story's underlying theme. A loss of faith erases any chance of having a normal life. The old man's attempt to commit suicide, and the old waiter's interpretation of the Lord's Prayer, are the symptoms of the depression they both suffer. The older waiter can only utter the following prayer: "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" (177). The only thing that keeps the older waiter alive is his job. The old man's dignity is all that he has left. Everything else is just "a nothing." This is why the old man is "drunk every night" (175). This is why the old waiter is one "of those who like to stay late at the cafe" (177). They are trying to escape the wreck of nada, the nothingness that comes with existential depression. Hemingway gives just the bare minimum of information in "A Clean Well-Lighted Place." He leaves the readers with nothing so as to help them feel the "nada" and understand the connections between

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