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Despair
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A Clean, Well-Lighted Place Quotes
Everyone had left the café except an old man who sat in the shadow the leaves of the tree made against the electric light.
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At the beginning of the story, Hemingway focuses on the ambiance of the café to highlight the importance of finding an appropriate place from which to grapple with the meaninglessness of life. In fact, this description of the shadow of the leaves appears three times in this very short, short story, which further emphasizes the importance of location: the old man doesn’t just sit anywhere in the café, he sits in the spot with the best lighting. It’s only under the condition of the best lighting in the café that the old man can feel comfortable enough to (as readers 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 su
“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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