Previous
Old Waiter
The young waiter, the antagonist of the story, is a server in the café with the old waiter. He is brash and callous toward the old drunk (a patron at the café) because he wants to get home to his family instead of staying at work. He even tells the old drunk (who is deaf) that the man should have killed himself the week before. During conversations with the old waiter about the old drunk, the young waiter betrays his naive attitudes about growing old, saying that an “old man is a nasty thing” and suggesting that the old waiter is simply talking nonsense by trying to empathize with the old drunk’s suicide attempt. The young waiter thinks that his time is more valuable than the two older characters’ time because he spends it on things that he thinks matter. Thus, after refusing the old drunk another drink and reducing the old waiter’s conversation points to “nonsense,” the young waiter exits the café and goes home.
Young Waiter Quotes in A Clean, Well-Lighted Place
The A Clean, Well-Lighted Place quotes below are all either spoken by Young Waiter or refer to Young 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:
).
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.”
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
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.”
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
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."
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
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
“What is an hour?”
“More to me than to him.”
“An hour is the same.”
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
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.”
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
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
Get the entire A Clean, Well-Lighted Place LitChart as a printable PDF.
"My students can't get enough of your charts and their results have gone through the roof." -Graham S.
Young Waiter Character Timeline in A Clean, Well-Lighted Place
The timeline below shows where the character Young 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 the young waiter asks...
(full context)
The old drunk waves the young waiter over and asks for another glass of brandy. The young waiter is reluctant to serve...
(full context)
When the young waiter returns to his colleague, he asks again why the old drunk tried to kill himself....
(full context)
The young waiter remarks that the man must be eighty years-old, and then he complains again about the...
(full context)
The old drunk looks up from his glass in the direction of the young waiter and asks for another brandy. The young, hurried waiter walks over and says, “No more...
(full context)
The older waiter asks the younger waiter , “Why didn’t you let him stay and drink?” The young waiter replies that he...
(full context)
Once the young waiter leaves, the old waiter continues the conversation with himself, wondering why he feels fear when...
(full context)
