A-Clean--Well-Lighted-Place
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What are their different opinions about a café and a bodega/a bar?
In his opinion, a café was "clean, welllighted" while a bodega was dirty, noisy and unpleasant.
The Iceberg Theory (also known as the "theory of omission") is the writing style of American writer Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway began his writing career as a reporter. Journalistic writing, particularly for newspapers, focuses only on events being reported, omitting superfluous and extraneous matter. When he became a writer of short stories, he retained this minimalistic style, focusing on surface elements without explicitly discussing the underlying themes. Hemingway believed the true meaning of a piece of writing should not be evident from the surface story, rather, the crux of the story lies below the surface and should be allowed to shine through. Critics such as Jackson Benson claim that his iceberg theory, in combination with his distinctive clarity of writing, functioned as a means to distance himself from the characters he created.
A Clean, Well-Lighted Place Ernest Hemingway
About the Author
Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) was born in Illinois. He began his writing career for The Kansas City Star in 1917. Many of his personal experiences provided themes, background material, and settings for his writing. His famous novel A Farewell to Arms was based on his knowledge of an ambulance driver on the Italian front during the First World War. The Spanish Civil War became the background for his brilliant war novel For Whom the Bell Tolls. With the appearance of The Sun Also Rises in 1926, Hemingway became not only the voice of the "lost generation" but the preeminent writer of his time. He described his experiences of bullfighting in Death in the Afternoon and big-game hunting in Green Hills of Africa. In 1953, his most popular work The Old Man and the Sea was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, and in the following year, he won the Nobel Prize in Literature "for his powerful, style-forming mastery of the art of narration." Hemingway's writing style is striking. He often uses short sentences and simple words to convey deep meaning.
He knew the difference between a café and a bodega or a bar and a home, but he didn't realize the importance of a café to the old man.
The Old Man
The old man was 80 years old. He was rich and lived with his niece. He visited the café every evening and drowned his sorrows in drink. He even tried to commit suicide. He was old and deaf, but neat and dignified.
What are their differenman?
He sympathized with the old man and defended him by saying that he was clean. He didn't feel it bad for the old man to stay in the café late into the night.
The Young Waiter
Unlike the older waiter, the younger waiter was quite indifferent to the old man. He was young and lived a married life. He was impatient with the old man and treated him coldly, making the old man feel unwelcome and unwanted. As the two waiters discussed the drunken old man, the younger waiter found him disgusting.
The Old Waiter
The older waiter was a sympathetic man. He knew the old man's history and understood his loneliness and despair. Like the old man, the old waiter was also lonely and not confident about life. He also liked to take pleasure in a quiet public place. He lived alone and suffered from insomnia.
2) shadow of the leaves
The old man hides in the shadow of the leaves. The shadow serves as a protection from the artificial light, which implies that the old man wants to be separated from the worldly affairs. This explains his attempt to commit suicide.
What do you know about them?
He was old and lacked confidence. He could not sleep until dawn.
He had a wife waiting for him to go home. He was young and self-confident.
How to Detect the Main Character
The main character in a story refers to the one who is mostly described and whose feelings and psychology are revealed in detail. In this sense, the main character in this story is the older waiter who, unlike the young waiter, sympathizes with the deaf old man because he himself is also old and lonely and takes pleasure in a quiet public place.
1) a clean, well-lighted place
The café is a "Clean, Well-Lighted Place". It is a refuge from the chaos and darkness outside. Darkness is a symbol of fear and loneliness. The light symbolizes comfort and the company of others. Unfortunately for the old man, this light is an artificial one, and the peace he gets in the café is both temporary and incomplete.
Main Idea
The story depicts what happened one night in a Spanish café where an old deaf man was drinking his brandy. His preference to staying in the café late till night prompted a long conversation between a young waiter and an old waiter, which helps reveal the two men’s attitudes toward life: the young was living in blindness, concerned only with his daily routines and desires while the old one, aware of the difficulty in the pursuit of profundity in life, tried to counter darkness and chaos with cleanness, light and order.
He was anxious to go home so he wanted the old man to leave as soon as possible; therefore, he became angry and impolite. He didn't sense the dignity that the old man had about him.