Nada and Meaning in Hemingway's "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place"

"A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" is often considered one of Ernest Hemingway's finest short stories. Through a seemingly simple narrative, it delivers a powerful message about the human search for meaning — and ultimately concludes that no meaning is to be found. In the end, the most that people can hope for is to find a well-lighted place that allows them to ignore their emptiness.

"A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" takes place in a café at night, where an old deaf man sits and drinks whiskey. Two waiters discuss him: the younger waiter fails to understand the old man and simply wants him to leave, while the older waiter responds with empathy. It is the contrast between these two men that carries much of the story's meaning.

The younger waiter shows no regard for the old man, remarking that "He should have killed himself last week" (Hemingway), and even saying directly to the old man, "You should have killed yourself last week" (Hemingway). His opinion seems to be that the old man may as well be dead, since he has nothing to live for. The young waiter also displays an intense hostility toward the man, though the story offers no apparent reason for it. His only legitimate grievance is that the man keeps him from going home — hardly sufficient grounds for such contempt. The clue to the young waiter's real problem comes when he says, "I wouldn't want to be that old. An old man is a nasty thing" (Hemingway). The older waiter immediately counters that there is nothing nasty about the old man — he is clean and drinks without spilling. The younger waiter replies simply that he doesn't want to look at him.

This exchange reveals that the younger waiter sees something more disturbing in the old man than mere appearance or behavior. His unwillingness to look at the old man, and his insistence that he would never want to be old, expose the truth: the young waiter does not want to confront the possibility that he may one day become just like the old man. He wants to believe his current life will last forever. This is reinforced earlier in the story when the young waiter compares himself favorably to the old man, saying, "He's lonely. I'm not lonely. I have a wife waiting in bed for me" (Hemingway). The older waiter replies quietly, "He had a wife once too" (Hemingway). The point of this exchange is that while the young waiter wants to distinguish himself from the old man, they are separated only by age. In looking at the old man, the young waiter is seeing what he fears becoming — and what he will become. This explains the hostility he directs at the old man: it is rooted in his need to escape and hide from an uncomfortable truth.

The older waiter, by contrast, has genuine empathy for the old man. He understands that the old man — and people like him — need a clean, well-lighted place to get them through the night. The story suggests that he knows this from personal experience, because he is the same way. This becomes clear when the older waiter tells the younger one that he has everything. When pressed on what he lacks, the older waiter replies, "Everything but work" (Hemingway). This admission suggests that his own life may be nearly as empty as the old man's, and that he too depends on a quiet, well-lighted place to endure the night.

In one sense, the only difference between the old man and the older waiter is that the older waiter works at the café while the old man visits it. The older waiter also says, "Each night I am reluctant to close up because there may be someone who needs the café" (Hemingway) — though the truth may be that he himself needs it. This is implied at the story's end, when the older waiter goes to a bar after leaving the café. Hemingway narrates: "A clean, well-lighted café was a very different thing. Now, without thinking further, he would go home to his room. He would lie in the bed and finally, with daylight, he would go to sleep. After all, he said to himself, it's probably only insomnia. Many must have it." The older waiter, then, also needs a place to carry him through the night, experiencing feelings not unlike the old man's — feelings that go deeper than mere loneliness or the absence of a companion.

This something that bothers both the old man and the older waiter is explained by the concept of nada. As Hoffman (91) explains, "Although the old waiter is the only one to articulate the fact, all three figures actually confront nothingness in the course of the tale." The concept of nada refers essentially to nothingness — particularly in a spiritual sense. Hemingway makes this explicit in his description of the older waiter's inner experience: