A Clean Well-Lighted Place
In life, there seems to be a clear parallel between age and contentedness. Those who are young are often full of life, while older individuals tend to isolate themselves. Since those older individuals had to have gone through many hardships and lost some of the people they cared the most about, it is not surprising that they feel despair. Ernest Hemingway’s "A Clean Well-Lighted Place" exemplifies the relationship between age and attitude through his characters. The story centers around two waiters- one young and one old preparing to close the cafe they work at. The young waiter is very eager to close up and to get home to his wife. He has little sympathy for the isolated, old man having a drink at the bar. This old man allegedly tried to commit suicide because "He was in despair"
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The girl who is accompanying the soldier “wore no head covering and hurried beside him” (Hemingway). Since this girl was wearing no head covering there is an implication that she is no respectable women. According to Charles Oliver, she is “probably a prostitute” (Oliver). Though hiring a prostitute is not the most conventional way to escape alienation, it is the route this soldier decides to take. Considering the soldier just came back from war, he must have felt great depression after witnessing so many tragic things happening to those around him. Not only would he have been exposed to the harmful sights of war, but he also must have been in solitude for so long that he forgot what human companionship felt like. Rather than continue to reminisce on the despair he feels from the war, he decides to look to this prostitute as a companion with whom he can evade his desolation. Instead of looking for a place or item to help him escape isolation, as the old men do, he instead turns to a companion to make him feel
The girl who is accompanying the soldier “wore no head covering and hurried beside him” (Hemingway). Since this girl was wearing no head covering there is an implication that she is no respectable women. According to Charles Oliver, she is “probably a prostitute” (Oliver). Though hiring a prostitute is not the most conventional way to escape alienation, it is the route this soldier decides to take. Considering the soldier just came back from war, he must have felt great depression after witnessing so many tragic things happening to those around him. Not only would he have been exposed to the harmful sights of war, but he also must have been in solitude for so long that he forgot what human companionship felt like. Rather than continue to reminisce on the despair he feels from the war, he decides to look to this prostitute as a companion with whom he can evade his desolation. Instead of looking for a place or item to help him escape isolation, as the old men do, he instead turns to a companion to make him feel