A Response To A Clean Well Lighted Place

Though a figurative wall was built between the kids of today and the kids of yesteryear, the struggle of feeling one with youth and elders is difficult task to take upon. An example of this would be the two waiters, one old and one young, at this bar. A Clean Well Lighted Place by Ernest Hemingway shows that exact dissent between those two age groups.

This story of differences starts off in a café with the aforementioned waiters talking about an old man who is the last person there. This old man was not a new thing for these waiters because he comes there every night getting drunk. The reader may feel sad that the old man is always getting drunk and suspect that he is depressed. Suspicion stops by the next line of data for that the older waiter says that tried to commit suicide the last week. For the young waiter this is like hearing “The cake is a lie”, because he can’t seem to wrap his head around that because the old man has tons of money. This is where the separations in thoughts begin.

 As today’s world is more about wealth and power we can see why the young protagonist may feel abashment because for him and most other people in this world the equation is money plus riches equals happiness.   As wealth and greed have a lot to this many a reader may relate this story to John Steinbeck’s The Pearl because the protagonist Kino finds a pearl but then is over come by greed. As the story goes on the youthful advocate waiter finally ask the inebriated old fellow why he is so desolated even though he was affluent with money. As the groggy but still wise senior said that money doesn’t make happiness. 

Though this aphoristic anecdote was written in 1926 the message it gives the reader is one that people of all ages should know and follow. Though the idea of the young and the old coming together with one mind is quite a long shot, for now most can agree with  Ernest Hemingway’s  A Clean Well Lighted Place has the message for everyone.