symbolizes that the beautiful things vanishes quickly.
The descriptions of the old man are mostly given by the dialogues between the two waiters, who tell the old man’s identity, experiences and sufferings.
“Last week he tried to commit suicide,” one waiter said. “Why?”
“He was in despair.” “About what?” “Nothing.”
“How do you know it was nothing?” “He has plenty of money.”11
From their conversation, we know that last week the old man “has plenty of money”, but he “tried to commit suicide” because of “nothing”. From the story we know that the “nothing” is actually something of great importance for his suicide. It is loneliness, meaninglessness and hopelessness that make him disappointed at life and choose to kill himself.
This story takes place during the war time; the old man represents sufferings and torture. Maybe he or his son participated in the war and witnessed its brutality, or maybe he has relatives who died because of the war. The old man may once had families, too. We know from the story that he once had a wife and may had children as well, but they are all dead now. That the responsibility to take care of him is left to his niece shows that his life is lonely and pitiful. The waiters continue their talking:
“What did he want to kill himself for? How should I know. How did he do it?
He hung himself with a rope. Who cut him down? His niece.
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Why did he do it? Fear for his soul.
How much money has he got? He’s got plenty.
He must be eighty years old.”12
And from the two waiters’ conversation, we know that it was his niece who saved his life. Maybe his niece does not want the responsibility. Since the old man has no relative, she must do that and she can inherit his legacy. These are not written in the story but can be inferred by careful readers. What is sure is that the old man is now spiritually desolated and disappointed at life.
As to the reader and the older waiter, the old man possesses no negative qualities, who is a bright contrast with the younger waiter. He is polite to the younger waiter, thanking him even when the young waiter spoils his drink and resents him obviously. When the younger waiter says “an old man is a nasty thing”, the older waiter replies “not always. This old man is clean. He drinks without spilling”. When the old man goes down the street, he walks “unsteadily but with dignity”. The old man acts kind of like Hemingway’s “grace under pressure” in the face of nada, the nothingness. He sensed the nothingness in his life but he can do nothing to change it, which makes him depressed and desperate. In this case, the old man wants the feeling of belongingness and love, and the care of his family to help spend his old age with peace.
B. The Old Man’s Attitude towards Nada
Old age is a time and space that is supposed to be accompanied by sweet nostalgia, respect and love from both family and society, for the old has contributed to society and accumulated wisdom. It is the old age that played a larger and longer part in the whole life.
Earnest Hemingway has created a lot of aged characters in his works, such as Count Mippipopolous in The Sun Also Rises, Count Greffi in A Farewell to Arms, Santiago in The Old Man and The Sea, and the protagonist in The Old Man and the
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Bridge, and so on. But the old man in A Clean, Well-lighted Place has not attracted as much attention as others. Hemingway described both their physical and spiritual conditions in that rocking time.
Confucius (551BC---479BC), a great educator and thinker, once cited his own struggles in life and assigned different roles to nearly every decade of his life:
“At fifteen, I had my mind bent on learning. At thirty, I stood firm. At forty, I had no doubts.
At fifty, I knew the decrees of Heaven.
At sixty, my ear was an obedient organ for the reception of truth. At seventy, I could follow what my heart desired, without transgressing what was right.”13
But not all of the old people can achieve this understanding of life. In addition, living in different social environments will lead people on different life journeys as well. The younger waiter in this story, well, has short-term views and no thorough understanding of society. As to the older waiter, we can see that he has no doubts about life. He has a deep understanding about life and nada, and tries to do something for others; while the old man is at a loss when confronted with nada. Living in a time when God is dead, he cannot find his value of existence.
Unlike the naive, inexperienced young waiter, the old man “must be eighty years old” and he has gone through a lot of events in his life. He was once married, but his wife is now dead, and he has no children, but only a niece to take care of him. What’s worse, the old man has no future in front of him but death. Old age leads to nothing but death. Hemingway has many works that concerned on death. In one of his early work, In Our Time, Hemingway contemplates on death in the eyes of a boy, Nick Adam, who asked his father if dying was hard. Hemingway observed that, “all stories, if continued far enough, end in death”.14 Death is inevitable to Hemingway’s heroes, old or young, as it is said in the Bible, “for dust you are, and dust you will return”. As
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Thomas Gray described in his Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard:
“The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow’r, And all that beauty, all that wealth e’er gave, Awaits alike th’ inevitable hour,
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.”15
The old man is in his old age, heading for his nearly coming of death without the companionship of his family. Bertrand Russell writes in his work How to grow old that an old man who has known all of human joys and sorrows should not fear death. He can think himself as a river, small at first. Then it gradually gets wider, and finally it becomes emerged in the sea, and painlessly loses its individual being. An old man should have no fear, since he has (should have) achieved whatever he can do in his life. But the old man in A Clean, Well-lighted Place has no such feelings. Having gone through the periods of war and economic depression, the old man now can’t find his value of living. And all his life is deprived of meaning because of the trick of government and society. Depressed and desperate, he chooses to hang himself with a rope to end his life because of “fear for his soul”, but is cut down by his niece. When failed in suicide, he chooses to get drunk nearly every night in this clean, well-lighted cafe to escape from nada. “This place has come to stand as an image of light, cleanness, and order against the dark chaos of its counter-symbol in the story: the idea of nada, or nothingness.”16 It can provide a refuge for those who feel hopeless and lonely.
The old man is only a representative of people who confront the same nada in life. In the face of nada, he chooses to escape. He struggles to find a way to deal with nada, but even his best method (committing suicide) simply subdues his nada rather than cure it. After failed in committing suicide, he chooses to get drunk every night. However, the old man has a highly remarkable quality that is his dauntless sense of dignity, which he tried his best to maintain to keep himself live his definition of a meaningful life. He had a deep understanding of the nothingness in the world. What
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he needs in his old age is light, a certain extent of cleanness and order to fight against nada. Even though he was drunk, he is “clean”, and “he drinks without spilling.” When he goes down the street, he walks unsteadily but with dignity. Living in a world where all is nada, that is what we can at least do.
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