WHAT CONTENT IS HEMINGWAY FEATURED IN “A CLEAN, WELL-LIGHTED

PLACE”?

There are no bad opusses, so some say. One of Ernest Hemingway's opus is no exception. A
simple story that raises the problem that many people face, successfully attracts the attention
of many people. In addition, the message inserted explicitly has such a deep meaning.
Unfortunately, Hemingway's use of many dialogues has left many people confused. How
could it not be, every dialogue does not have an adverb of who uttered the dialogue. In fact, I
had heard from my lecturer that many experts debated this dialogue article. They argue over
who said the dialogue. For the content, Hemingway describes his characters through the
conversations they have with each other, takes two types of conflict, and makes the message
explicit that he conveys.

The difference between the old waiter and the young waiter looks very thick. The author
describes the different characteristics of these characters by using lots of dialogues. In this
dialogue, the reader can already guess how the characters of the old waiter and young waiter
are. There are many character differences between this old waiter and this young waiter. First,
regarding the sympathy of the two towards the old man. The old waiter has great sympathy
for the problems faced by the old man. Meanwhile, the young waiter only thought about
going home, regardless of the problems the old man was facing. He only thought about how
to get the old man to go home quickly because he also wanted to go home. His wife was
waiting for him at home. The second difference is regarding their experience in dealing with
'nothingness'. In the short story it is clear that the old man has experienced 'nothingness' but
the details are not explained. Meanwhile, young waiters do not or have not felt 'nothingness'.
This may be due to his young age.

In this short story, Hemingway uses man versus man and man versus himself conflict types.
For the man versus man, it is clear here that the meaning is old waiter versus young waiter in
the sense that it is not a fight, but an argument about the problems faced by the old man. They
also had arguments about whether they should close their cafe or not. The old waiter chose
no, because he thought that a clean and well-lighted cafe was a suitable place for someone
like an old man. While the young waiter thinks that the cafe should be closed immediately,
because he also has a life besides working. He has a wife waiting for him at home. Regarding
man versus himsel here is the old man and himself and the old waiter and himself. The old
man and the old waiter had a ‘nada’ in them that thought the world was nothing. Even the old
man sank into despair and had tried to commit suicide

There are actually many moral values that can be drawn in this short story, one of which is
the person's experience in life affects the way he thinks in the face of looking at something. It
can be seen in this short story, the old man has had experience in dealing with 'nothingness'
and maybe because he is old enough, he sees a lot of the world outside of his own
perspective. This is what makes him think more broadly than a young waiter. As for the
young waiter, he has never experienced 'nothingness' because maybe he is still young. In
addition, the experience he gained was not as much experience as the old waiter had.

This story provides many valuable lessons about life. How the old man and the old waiter
deal with 'nothingness', hints at how the two people deal with the same problem.

Essay by Maulida Yasin