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The old waiter, the story’s protagonist, is the older of two waiters at a clean, well-lighted café. Hemingway depicts the old waiter as kind, dignified, and wise in his belief that, since life is meaningless, one must prioritize being comfortable and dignified above all else. Because the old waiter understands the importance of small pleasures, he is sympathetic toward an old drunk who likes to stay up late drinking at his café. While the younger waiter hurries to get home, the older waiter is unrushed; he doesn’t want to be anywhere else because he recognizes that lingering at the café is a pleasure. The old waiter is shown to be empathetic, since he carefully considers what led the old drunk to attempt suicide the week before, imagining what it must be like to be 80 and without a wife. He decides that “nothing” was the cause for the attempted suicide—life’s meaninglessness, in other words. He then recites a version of the Lord’s Prayer that replaces many words with “nada,” suggesting that he, too, thinks there is no reason for anything. The old waiter’s own actions mirror the old man’s; when he goes for a drink at the nearby bar after his shift, for example, he quickly leaves because its shabbiness fails to provide him with the atmosphere necessary to feel comfortable and dignified, which are his priorities in life.
Old Waiter Quotes in A Clean, Well-Lighted Place
The A Clean, Well-Lighted Place quotes below are all either spoken by Old Waiter or refer to Old Waiter. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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A Clean, Well-Lighted Place Quotes
“Last week he tried to commit suicide,” one waiter said.
“Why?”
“Because he was in despair.”
“About what?”
“Nothing.”
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This is the first conversation between the young waiter and the old waiter, and it hints at the topic the two will discuss throughout the remainder of the story: the cause of the old drunk’s despair. By asking what it was that caused the old drunk to attempt suicide, the young waiter shows that he believes that despair must have a specific cause—for him, despair is not the natural condition of living, but rather an aberration brought about by external factors. The older waiter’s response (that the old drunk was in despair about “nothing”) seems, at first, like a way Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. P
“I wish he would go home. I never get to bed before three o’clock. What kind of hour is that to go to bed?”
“He stays up because he likes it.”
“He’s lonely. I’m not lonely. I have a wife waiting in bed for me.”
“He had a wife once too.”
“A wife would be no good to him now.”
“You can’t tell. He might be better with a wife.”
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After serving the old drunk another brandy, the young waiter complains that he’s ready to go home to his wife and insinuates that the old man wouldn’t be there if he were married. This shows that the younger waiter believes family is more important than drinking in a clean, well-lighted café (and, implicitly, that his own life is better than the old man’s). In the young waiter’s view, the old man only comes to the café to waste what little time remains to him—and by virtue of that, waste the time of the young waiter, too (which implies that the Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas d
“I wouldn’t want to be that old. An old man is a nasty thing.”
“Not always. This old man is clean. He drinks without spilling. Even now, drunk. Look at him."
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In conversation with the older waiter, the young waiter expresses his frustration with and disdain for the old drunk by disparaging his age. Since the young waiter cannot fathom despair being the natural condition of life, and the older waiter has already discounted poverty or loneliness as sources of the old drunk’s despair, the younger waiter can only imagine that the old drunk is suicidal because of his age. The young waiter’s obsession with finding an external cause for the old drunk’s despair shows the young waiter’s discomfort with the notion that despair might be an honest reaction to living—perhaps, Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui au
The waiter watched him go down the street, a very old man walking unsteadily but with dignity.
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After being rushed out of the café by the young waiter, the old drunk leaves to go home. While he is unsteady on his feet (perhaps due to both brandy and age), the old waiter admires that the old drunk walks away in an honorable and respectable manner. It’s one thing to leave drunk and out of control; it’s another to leave drunk while intentionally maintaining decency. That the old waiter admires this dignity so much shows that he values (perhaps above all else) facing life’s meaningless in a respectable way. While life is meaningless and despair is the appropriate Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores s
“What is an hour?”
“More to me than to him.”
“An hour is the same.”
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After refusing the old drunk further service, the young waiter defends himself against the older waiter’s admonitions that he could have worked another hour and allowed the old drunk to stay at the café. The young waiter justifies his actions by noting that his time is more valuable than the old drunk’s—to him, getting home to his wife is more important than an old, bored drunk getting to have another drink. He fails to see that the old drunk’s perspective of time (or, indeed, his existence) matters. The older waiter’s retort is ambiguous. On the one hand, it can be Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatib
“You have youth, confidence, and a job,” the old waiter said. “You have everything.”
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Realizing that the young waiter fails to understand his own lack of life experience, the older waiter subtly hints that, although the privileges of his youth make him happy, they are not guaranteed over the course of a lifetime. The young man’s job keeps him busy, and his family provides him with a reason to work hard. But none of this can prepare him to cope with life where all that external purpose is gone. The young waiter takes his life’s apparent purpose for granted, which makes him desperately naïve to lives that are not like his own, especially the Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perf
Our nada who art in nada, nada be thy name thy kingdom nada thy will be nada in nada as it is in nada. Give us this nada and our daily nada and nada us our nada as nada our nadas and nada us not into nada but deliver us from nada; pues nada. Hail nothing full of nothing, nothing is with thee.
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Upon realizing why he feels anxious and afraid, the older waiter recites his own, unique rendition of the Lord’s Prayer. By substituting the primary nouns of the prayer with “nada,” he likewise substitutes the primary ideas and content of Christianity for ideas that are fundamentally barren and empty of purpose or content. In other words, he reduces the Lord’s Prayer to utter nonsense and consciously adopts a worldview wholly and unequivocally devoid of purpose. Where some might say that God provides mankind with purpose, the old waiter deviates from that possibility and grows critical of any path that ascribes meaning Dolorem e
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Old Waiter Character Timeline in A Clean, Well-Lighted Place
The timeline below shows where the character Old Waiter appears in A Clean, Well-Lighted Place. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
A Clean, Well-Lighted Place
The old waiter tells the young waiter that the old drunk tried to kill himself last week. When...
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...to his colleague, he asks again why the old drunk tried to kill himself. The old waiter says, “how should I know.” Then, in response to more questions, he reveals that the...
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...again about the late hour. The old drunk “stays up because he likes it,” the old waiter responds, and the young waiter calls the drunk “lonely,” in contrast to himself, since he...
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The older waiter asks the younger waiter, “Why didn’t you let him stay and drink?” The young waiter...
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Once the young waiter leaves, the old waiter continues the conversation with himself, wondering why he feels fear when contemplating the old drunk’s...
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When he finishes the prayer, the old waiter smiles and gets a drink at a nearby bar. He tells the bartender that he...
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