Wednesday, July 18, 2012

What is the tone and style of "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place"?

The tone of Ernest Hemingway's "A Clean, Well-Ligthed Place" is completely dispassionate.  Using his journalistic objectivity  and minimalist style, Hemingway simply reports what the waiters do and say in staccato dialogue. Nevertheless, it is apparent that the "waiter who is in a hurry breaks the rules of orderliness and adds to the chaos when he speaks



with that ommission of syntax stupid people employ when talking to drunken people or foreigners. 'No mor tonight.  Close now.'



That Hemingway disapproves of the waiter who hurries the old man is apparent in the question and description of the second waiter:



'Why didn't you let him saty and drink?' the unhurried waiter asked.


'I want to go home to bed.'


'What is an hour?'


'More to me than to him.'


'An hour is the same.'



The young, hurried waiter tells the other that he talks like an old man himself, for he can just buy a bottle and drink at home.  But the older waiter argues, "It's not the same.'  The younger waiter agrees.  For, even he knows that there is no order to this taking a bottle home.


So, while the tone is dispassionate, there is yet an undertone of an existential act of order. The older waiter speaks of the ceremony of order to the younger waiter:



You do not understand.  This is a clean and pleasant cafe. It is well lighted.  The light is very good and also, now, there are shadows of the leaves.



After the young waiter goes home, the older one continues the conversation with himself: 



It was all a nothing and a man was nothing too.  It was only that and light was all it needed and a certain cleanness and order.



This orderliness is what sustains a person; a "clean, well-lighted cafe was a very different thing."

No comments:

Post a Comment

In Act III, scene 2, why may the establishment of Claudius's guilt be considered the crisis of the revenge plot?

The crisis of a drama usually proceeds and leads to the climax.  In Shakespeare's Hamlet , the proof that Claudius is guilty...