While Hemingway’s short story “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” is usually interpreted as a representation of the conflict between man and aging, it is also a fruitful example of negatively-used social categorization. In the story, the young waiter’s use of person perception is completely offensive to the old man who falls victim. Due to the young waiter’s inability to sympathize with the old man, the waiter grows increasing more rude and cruel as the story continues.
In Ernest Hemingway’s “A Clean Well-Lighted Place”, the young waiter designates the old man as undeserving of freedom and life based on the man being elderly, deaf, and alone in the cafe. The young waiter is blatantly ageist, stating “An old man is a nasty thing” (153). He is best described as self-indulged. He is clearly in a happy marriage and is eager to return to a wife “waiting in bed” for him. He has successfully obtained “youth, confidence, and a job… everything,” according to the old waiter (35-36).
Although, despite his prosperity, he displays no compassion for the old man. The young waiter is simply in a hurry to leave the cafe and move on with his life. His youthful happiness has blinded him from empathizing with the old man. “I have confidence,” he says, “I’m all confidence,” and this has caused him to be ignorant to the fact that he too is growing old (154). His juvenility and overall good fortunes has given him sense of mortality. He has categorized the elderly as “nasty” because he does not see himself ever being in the same position of the old man.
Knowing that the old man is deaf, the young waiter constantly acts in a condescending manner which implies he is not respectful of the man’s disability. The young waiter directly speaks to the old man saying, “You should have killed yourself last week” (153). Even though the old man can not hear the waiter due to his hearing deficiency, it still portrays the lack of respect the waiter has for the old man he is serving. The waiter is blatantly speaking in front of the old man, knowing the man is unable to hear him.
The narrator describes the tone that the waiter uses to speak to the old man as “that omission of syntax stupid people employ when talking to drunken people or foreigners” (153). The waiter believes he must speak in simple words because the use of complex sentences would confuse the deaf, old man. The young waiter directly correlates the man’s disability with stupidity. The waiter is socially categorizing those with disabilities as being inferior to, and less intelligent than, those who do not have disabilities.
Throughout the short story, the young waiter repeatedly compares himself to the old man. When calling the old man “lonely”, the young waiter immediately follows the statement ensuring “I’m not lonely. I have a wife waiting in bed for me” (153). The waiter cannot fathom that the man could have possibly been happier with a wife. When the older waiter brings up the possibility, the young waiter says, “A wife would be no good to him now” (153). The waiter believes that loneliness is a mindset rather than a feeling derived from situations or events.
The waiter sees himself as a happy person with a wife, he cannot imagine that there is a possibility of him being similar to the old man in the future. While the old man is sitting alone in the cafe, the young waiter feels the need to repeatedly explain why his desires are more valuable than the old man’s. Because the man is elderly, disabled, and alone, the waiter believes the man is inferior to him. In the young waiter’s mind, his desire to go home and sleep with his wife is constituted as more important than the old man’s desire to sit in the cafe.
The waiter goes as far as saying that his time is more valuable than the old man’s; the old waiter asks “What is an hour? ” where the young waiter replies with, “More to me than him” (154). The waiter dehumanizes the old man and feels he is undeserving of life and freedom. The waiter directly stated to his coworker that the man “should’ve killed himself last week” (153). He feels the old man has no benefit to being alive and therefore, should have succeeded in committing suicide. The waiter clearly views the man as “less than human and thus not deserving of moral consideration” (Maiese).
He does not believe the man deserves fair treatment. The waiter felt that the man should have committed suicide because it is warranted by the fact that the man is “expendable” (Opotow 4). Although, it is hard to say that the waiter’s disgust could ultimately turn into an extremity of moral exclusion. While the waiter does seem to belittle the man, I feel inclined to categorize it as an act of ignorance rather than an act of intense hatred. The waiter is unaware of how it feels to be old, disabled, and alone. Therefore, the waiter feels he is superior to those that fall under any of these categorizations.
He has created a temporary enemy image of the old man considering the man is the reason he is forced to stay at work late (Maiese). However, I do not think the young waiter despises the man enough to commit an extreme act of moral exclusion; for example, I do not think the waiter is capable of murdering the old man. Context clues in the short story provide a deeper look at what is fueling the waiter’s cruelness. The narrator defends the waiter, saying “He did not wish to be unjust. He was only in a hurry” (154).
The narrator wants the audience to be aware that the waiter is ignorant and cruel but he is not evil. He is like any other young adult that hates his or her job and wants to go home. The naivety that comes along with the waiter’s age causes him to be unaware and inconsiderate of the old man’s feelings. He socially categorizes the man based off of the three most distinct characteristics he has observed. While the waiter constantly belittles the man for his age, disability, and loneliness, the narrator wants the audience to be aware that the young waiter is a normal person and is not capable of evil actions.
