Writing Assignment on

Hemingway's "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place"

Write on one of the following topic. Note that each asks you to explore in detail the nature and possible significance of some important systematic contrast Hemingway has built into the situation he invites us to imagine.

Option One:

What are the main points of difference between the two waiters -- in their attitudes towards the old man, in the values we infer they hold, and in the conditions of their lives (and the experiences we infer these conditions have led them to have)?

The title of the story gets considerably enriched by the time the story is told - that is, if we have done some reflecting on the implications of the older waiter's reflections at the end. The complex of meanings that eventually comes to attach to the idea of "a clean, well-lighted place" has to do with the implications of the ideas the story brings up in opposition to the 3 component ideas: disorder, darkness, the not-placed or no-place. (How many things can you identify as mentioned or implied in the story that are opposites of the various connotations of the concept of "place" that you think might be relevant, for appreciating the human issues Hemingway seems to be raising in his story?) What, then, does the title concept come to mean in the story, and how is this connected with what the story points to as its opposites?

  Suggestions are welcome.  Please send your comments to lyman@ksu.edu .

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