"A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" - Ernest Hemingway

I liked this story. The writing style was very hard to get into - but after reading it through the second time, it realy grew on me. However, I loved the theme of the story itself after only to first time reading it! In our class discussion, everyone was pretty negative about the younger waiter - I really understood him though. He was rude, but haven't we all had moments like that? When our present desires supercede our care for others? Actually - don't we all live like that, for the most part? I guess I was reluctant to judge him, since I know that I live the same way.

1. He's lonely. He dreads the thought of lying awake at night with no one to talk to. And he hates knowing that, when he wakes up in the morning, there still won't be anyone. The cafe represents something, in contrast to the nada he repeated - it's a place that they can both feel they have people who care about them, and something to cling to, and call their own.

We also talked about the strangeness of slipping into Spanish at times - and one thing I thought, but failed to actually speak up and say in class was that often, when someone is bilingual, one of the languages is the one that more clearly expresses things important, or especially emotional. So not only does the use of this foreign language draw our attention to what's being said, it may indicate that what's being said is something the speaker feels strongly about, or something that's coming straight from their heart.

"Some lived in it and never felt it, but he knew it all was nada y pues nada y nada y pues nada."

Is there really anyone who lives in this "nothingness" and never feels it? I believe we all have moments when life feels like nothing - when we ourselves feel like nothing. However, even for those who don't have the comfort that religion, God, or more specifically, a Christian life and personal relationship with Christ might offer, there is always still something or someone to put their hope in. There is always a bright spot, a "clean, well-lighted place" that they can turn to when life gets hard.