A Clean, Well-Lighted Place

             Loneliness is the prominent theme in, “A Clean Well-Lighted Place”, a short story written by Ernest Hemingway. Both the old man and the older waiter, who is the protagonist of the story, suffer from loneliness, even though the older waiter does not want to admit it. The younger waitress is not necessarily the antagonist he is just an ignorant character. He has not had a lot of experience. There is a part of the story where one sees how ignorant he is, when he says that the older man had no reason to kill himself because he had a lot of money. This story is written in third-person objective which gives the story a lot more meaning. Symbolism is used in the story for example the old man is a symbol of what the waiter is becoming to be.  The part where the author uses great metaphor and that is when the waiter substitutes words from a prayer with nada. This showed how truly lonely the waiter was.

            This was a very sad story. The younger waiter really got on my nerves. He was so insensitive. Both the older men broke my heart at how sad and lonely they were. I know many people like this and I have sometimes been as ignorant as the younger waiter and have not noticed people loneliness until it was too late. I really enjoyed this story it is one of my favorites so far.