Clean Well-Lighted Place by Ernest

¶ … Clean Well-Lighted Place by Ernest Hemingway and the play "Othello" by William Shakespeare. Specifically it will discuss the theme of alienation from a community. Both of these stories illustrate alienation from a community because of age or race. They are both tragic pieces, and they both involve men who have problems with the people in their lives. One drinks, and one becomes insanely jealous of those around him. They are both unhappy characters who also have an affect on the other characters in the works. Thus they show that alienation from a community is common, and it also affects more people than just those who are alienated.

In Hemingway's work, an old man sits in a bar every night and drinks, keeping the waiters later than they want to work. He is a sad old man because he is deaf, and seems to have few people who care for him. He is alienated from his community because he cannot hear, and because he has simply outlived his usefulness. Many people do not care about the old and infirm, and so they live their lives alone, with only a "clean well-lighted place" and their alcohol to console them. Some of this man's isolation is illustrated by the uncaring waiter who cannot wait for him to leave so he can go home to his wife. He is selfish and unfeeling, and makes fun of the old man to his face, knowing the old man cannot hear him. He is mean-spirited, and he represents the society and community that has turned its back on the old man, leaving him to live and drink alone.

The old waiter is more patient and understanding with the old man, because he too knows the fear of living alone that it is clear the man faces. One critic writes, "The old waiter commiserates with the suffering of the old man, who needs some brandy in a clean well-lighted cafe in order to hold at bay the demons of the night. The aging soldiers of the night need one another to survive" (Sipiora 63). Thus, the old waiter knows that he could become the old man someday, and face the same alienation from a community that the man faces today. He is more understanding, but he also has his own problems. Hemingway writes, "Nor can you stand before a bar with dignity although that is all that is provided for these hours. What did he fear? It was not a fear or dread, it was a nothing that he knew too well. It was all a nothing and a man was a nothing too" (Hemingway). The waiter fears he is nothing, just as the old man is nothing more than a bother and a pest to the young waiter. This shows again the way society and community tend to alienate the old and infirm, excluding them from the community and leaving them alone to cope and ultimately die by themselves. This is a sad story, and there is really no resolution to it. The man will die, the old waiter will grow older, and the community will continue to misunderstand and push away those people who grow old and "do not fit in."

Shakespeare's "Othello" presents a similar message but with different characters and methods. Othello is a Moor (a black Turkish man), who is grudgingly accepted by the community as long as he remains a strong leader and commander. However, many Europeans, such as those in the play, might not trust Othello because he is a Moor. Another critic writes, "The Moors and the Turks were united in religion, and the traditional enemies of Christian Europe, having pressed as far as Tours from the south, and as near as Vienna from the east" (Bloom 126). When Othello marries the white Desdemona, he presses his luck, and the tide of public favor turns against him. One of his most trusted friends turns against him and convinces him that Desdemona is having an affair with another of his friends. Othello is so blinded by jealousy and rage that he cannot see how his own band of men, his own "community" has turned against him and is pitting him against the people he used to trust the most. By the end of the play he is a beaten man, an outcast and a murderer, and his speech shows it. Shakespeare writes, "I am not valiant neither, / but every puny whipster gets my sword. / but why should honor outlive honesty? / Let it go all" (Shakespeare V, ii). Othello has been at the top, and he has reached the bottom, and the community no longer looks on him with respect, but with fear and some loathing. He is a beaten man, just as the man in the cafe is old and beaten, and he kills himself at the end of the play, just as the old man tried to kill himself unsuccessfully.