-Anup Joshi
Theme
of Aging and Suffering in Hemingway’s “A Clean Well Lighted Place”
This
research paper explores the theme of aging and suffering in Earnest Hemingway’s
short story “A Clean Well Lighted Place”. The major characters of the story, the
old man, the older waiter and the younger waiter are referred by their age
rather than their name. Hemingway valorizes the age of the characters over
their name so as to portray suffering and isolation that humans come to face as
they grow older. Theme is the meaning or core part of any fiction. As Robert
Scholes claims, “We must not only carefully look at the work itself but also
look away from the work toward the world of ideas and experiences. Discovering
themes or meanings in a work involves us in making connection between the work
and world outside it. These connections are the meaning” (130).
The
story is simple and tells a simple incident at a café but when looked from the
aura of deep meaning, we can find serious theme embodied within it. According
to Kirszner and Mandell, “every element of a story can shed light on its
themes” (302). So, the researcher claims that multiple elements of the story
converge to depict the theme of aging and suffering.
The
old man does not possess a wife and “liked to sit late [at café] because he was
deaf and now at night it was quiet and he felt the difference” (233). He had even
attempted to commit suicide but failed. He has no connection to the world
except for his niece. He is all alone and struggles with his despair by staying
at a clean well lighted café, drinking brandy which leads him to oblivion. His
life is meaningless and he is forced to live, for he fails to end his life.
Like Samuel Becket mentions in his drama Endgame, “You are on earth.
There is no cure for that” (40), the old man also has nowhere to seclude. He is
bound to suffer. When a waiter at café asks for what reason the old man was in
despair and tried to commit suicide, other waiter replies “nothing” (233).This
implies that for an old man, one does not need any other reason to suffer, the
‘old age’ itself is sufficient.
Similarly,
the older waiter also resembles the old man to whom young waiter states, “you
talk like an old man yourself” (235). He confesses, “I have never had
confidence and I’m not young” (235). Parallel to the old man, he likes to stay
late night at the café and wants to escape from the loneliness and darkness his
place has to offer. He is also insomniac and cannot sleep properly at night. He
has no family and wife. His condition is not as vulnerable as old man because
he still works, does not drink heavily like old man and is not suicidal. But it
is clearly evident that he is also in verge of becoming identical to the old
man. Aging will only make his lonely life worse and fill it with the dark hues
of despair and woe.
The
younger waiter, on the other hand is carefree, confident and nothing like the
older characters of the story. He is married and is in rush to ascend to bed
with his wife as soon as possible. He is conscious about time and reminds the
old man, “you’ll be drunk” (234). Unlike the older men, his use of diction is
quite optimistic and full of zeal. He does not know about the existential
reality of life. He shows indifference to the suffering of the old man and the
older waiter. He is full of hope and enthusiasm. As Kirszner and Mandell
suggest, “a narrator’s or character’s statement can reveal a theme” (302), his
statements portray himself as opposite to the old man and older waiter. “He
[the old man] is lonely, I’m not lonely. I have a wife waiting in bed for me…I
wouldn’t want to be that old. An old man is a nasty thing...[An hour is] More
to me than to him…I have confidence. I’m all confidence…I want to go home and
into bed” (234, 235). Whereas the diction of older characters are full of words
like “nada”, “another brandy”, “I’m reluctant to close up”, “nothing” et cetera.
These are all pessimistic word choice and portray the sombre life of old
characters. “Nada” which is Spanish word for “nothing” is used twenty-two times
in the story. The repetition of this word is done for numerous times just to
show the worthless reality of life. This symbolizes that the world has no
meaning at all and is full of absurdities and sufferings.
From the characterization of these three characters, we
can understand how Hemingway has postulated a motif that aging is directly
proportional to suffering and loneliness. Younger people are happy and attached
with the family and society. But as one grows, he becomes detached from the
same society and is bound to live a life of despair and suffering. One day the
life will be totally burden for him. As Kriszner and Mandell suggest, “The
title of a story can often provide insights into the theme of a story” (302).
The title “A Clean Well Lighted Place” connotes that this place is different
from filthy, dark place. The personal space of the old man is full of solitude,
darkness and misery. A Clean Well Lighted café is the only place he can elope
from his goalless life full of forlornness. There is no music and noise like in
a bar and one can drink peacefully. Moreover, the old man can find peace and
order in a well-lit café. According to Brown, Charles:
The
title “A Clean Well Lighted Place” is a masterful work of understatement in
itself, because it fully describes or characterizes man’s search for peace. Man
has an inner emotional yearning to find a state of order…Therefore Hemingway’s
title, through the use of understatement suggests that man’s innermost hungers
are to find a place where there will be order, security and certainty. (Par. 8)
Besides, about the place, the older waiter asserts, “I am
of those who like to stay late at the café…with all those who do not want to go
to bed. With all those who need a light for the night” (235). He takes the
place as an escape from the reality. But for the younger waiter, a clean well
lighted place is an obstacle for his married life.
According to Kriszner and Mandell, “A story’s conflict
can offer clues to its theme” (303). The conflict of this story also justifies
our theme of aging and suffering. One of the major conflicts in the story is
the conflict between two waiters, older waiter and young waiter. The older
waiter insists young waiter to serve drinks to the old man and let him stay.
But younger waiter strongly resents the idea. He even says rude things to the
old man. When the old man demands more brandy, he replies, “You should have
killed yourself last week” (234). On the other hand, the older waiter is
sympathetic towards the old man. He understands what it is like to be an old
lonely deaf man. But young waiter has no regard for the distress of old man. He
is in hurry to go home to his wife. The young waiter does not hesitate to say,
“An old man is a nasty thing” (234). The old waiter is older than the young one;
so he can understand the dilemma of life whereas younger waiter is unaware
about the dystopian world of loneliness.
Similarly, Kriszner and Mandell claims, “The point of
view of a story can also help shed light on theme” (303). The point of view of
this story has also contributed to clarify the theme of the story. M.H. Abrams
interprets, “More radical instances of the unintrusive narrator, who gives up
even the privilege of access to inner feelings and motives, are to be found in
a number of Earnest Hemingway’s short stories; for example,…“A Clean Well
Lighted Place” (241). The story is told in third person point of view. The
narrator does not focus on a single character. Though the old man is important
character of the story, we do not hear his story from his mouth. We come to
know about his age, wife, suicide attempts and property through the
conversation of two waiters. And during their first conversation, we do not
even know which dialogue is uttered by which waiter. The waiters are just
referred by “one waiter said” (233) as if they are the trivial characters. The
narration technique of Hemingway makes us assimilate that old man or old waiter
or younger waiter are not merely fictional characters, but are mimicry of the
real people. The resemblance of characters with readers signifies that this
story is about our own world. Hemingway trivializes the names and other aspects
of characters and concentrates only on limited aspects. He does not apprise us
where the old man and the young waiter go after the café is closed. But he
tells us that the old waiter goes to a bar and then finally to bed, where he is
unable to sleep. Hemingway refers he is more of an insomniac guy than lonely.
After café, Hemingway has focused solely on older waiter because he is the link
between the younger waiter and the old man. He finds life meaningless and even
dismisses religion as “nada”. He cannot define himself through any discipline. His
despondency suggests that the older waiter is in process of developing into
someone like the old man in near future.
Set in post war America of 1920s and 1930s, the older
characters of the story are facing the identity crisis. They are strangled by
the depression war has brought. They do not know the purpose of their life and
find solace only in clean, well lighted cafes. The older waiter thinks “Certainly
you do not want music” (236). The old man is also irritated by music, noise and
wants to drink peacefully without a company. They are all alone and melancholic
without the enthusiasm for life and future. This existentialist reality is the
key of their suffering. They are facing identity crisis as Green and Lebihan
allude:
Finding
a satisfactory definition of the human self, as it is positioned in the world
and as it experiences itself and its world, has been one of the most pressing
philosophical problems; predictably there is no obvious route that we can offer
through the maze of theories that wrestle with the question of ‘Who am I?’
(140)
We
are bound to repeat same mundane acts every day. Life is meaningless and human
is an insignificant being. The older waiter makes this idea clear when he
concludes, “It was all a nothing and man was a nothing too…Our nada who art in
nada” (236). Emphasis on the word “nada” suggests the futility of human life.
The supposition of old waiter about insomnia, “many must have it” (236) refers
that he has started to believe absurdity of life as a universal phenomenon. On
the other hand, the younger waiter is unknown about these absurdities of life
and lives a life of carefree individual tuned with the world. When he will come
to know the futility of our existence with his aging, he will also be a desperate
man. And then he will have no
place of comfort to recluse because there will be yet another young waiter in
café in hurry to close the cafe and get home. We humans are stuck in
mundane cyclic life. Life has become a cliché and we all are obliged to undergo
similar situations the people before us have gone through. The hues of youth
will fade away from the younger waiter too and he will be dismantled from the
world. As poet W.B. Yeats laments, “ere time transfigured me”, the time is
going to mould him into a “nasty” old man figure. He will have to suffer from
the same loneliness and disparity.
In conclusion, the story
“A Clean Well Lighted Place” is a story about three men who are at different
states of life; a deaf old man about eighty who visits café late night to get
drunk and two waiters of the café (one young, another older). Recently attempted
to commit suicide, the old man is living a hollow life of despair and anguish.
Young waiter is full of energy with “everything” he needs, a wife, a job and
confidence. He is indifference to the suffering of the old man and forces the
customer to leave the café earlier, so he could retire to bed with his wife. On
the other hand, older waiter understands the suffering of old man and is himself
in search of reason to strive on living to the next day. He has no reason to go
home and urges to stay at clean, well-lit café. To be more precise, the age of
characters of the story is directly proportional to their suffering and
melancholy. The older they grow to be, the miserable they become.
Works
Cited
Abrams, M. H. A
Glossary of Literary Terms. Boston:Thompson Wadsworth,2005. Print
Beckett, Samuel. Endgame.
London:Faber & Faber, 2013 .
Print
Brown, Charles. “The
search for peace in “A Clean Well Lighted Place”.” National Great
Book
Curriculum. June 24, 2016. Web.
<www.nationalgreatbooks.com/symposium/issue1/Brown.asp>
Green, Keith and Lebihan,
Jill. Critical Theory & Practice: A Course book. Special
Nepal
Ed. New York & London, Routledge, 2007. Print
Hemingway, Earnest. “A
Clean Well Lighted Place”. Literature: Reading, Reacting and
Writing.
Kriszner, Laurie and Stephen Mandell. 4th ed. Boston: Heinle and
Heinle Thomson Learning, 2000. 233-236.
Kriszner, Laurie and
Stephen, Mandell. Literature: Reading, Reacting and Writing. 4th
ed.
Boston:
Heinle and Heinle Thomson Learning, 2000. Print
Scholes, Robert, Nancy R.
Comley, Carl H. Klans and Michael Silverman, eds. Elements
of Literature.
4th ed. New Delhi:OUP, 2009. Print
Yeats, William Butler. “The
Lamentation of the Old Pensioner”.
Poetry Archive. June 14,
2016.
Web.
<
http://www.poetry-archive.com/y/the_lamentation_of_the_old_pensioner.html>
0 सुझाबहरु:
Post a Comment