After he graduated from high school Hemingway turned his back on university and he decided to move to Kansas City. It was there where he got his first job as a writer. He was a reporter for the Kansas City Star. The Star was the first to introduce to him the news writing format which demands brief, to the point sentences and the smooth flowing of ideas. It seems that Hemingway adapted this style to his fiction writng. Hemingway demonstrates this talent in a short story called "A Clean Well-Lighted Place".

When he was 19 Hemingway enlisted in the army. He was rejected due to a defective left eye. He then turned to the Red Cross in which he became a second lieutenant. The Red Cross brought him to the front lines of the war in Italy. It was here where he saw many disturbing sights which probably had a hand in sh

The short story "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" was set in a small cafe in Madrid, Spain. There is an old deaf man who sits alone on a patio, sipping brandy. Together two waiters observe the old man who is their last customer. The old man is comforted by the peaceful atmosphere of the cafe but the younger waiter wants him to leave. Hemingway may have seen himself as the older waiter, he was about thirty-five years old when this story was written. In the story the older waiter comes from the stand-point that he is getting old and he does not really have anything to show for life, no friends, not very much money, and no real love. At this point in his life, Hemingway may have seen himself here. "A Clean and Well-Lighted Place" originally appeared in a short story book, To Have and Have Not. This is a good summary phrase for this story. You have happiness or you don't, you have friends or lovers or you don't, you have money or you don't, and for those people who don't, there must be a place where they can seek a false sense of comfort, like a quiet cafe in Spain. I feel that Hemingway might have been feeling lonely and unfulfilled when he wrote this story. The cafe might have been a fantasy place where he may have liked to go to comfort himself. It seems that he puts himself in the place of the older waiter who really has nothing but his work. Hemingway probably felt that he had nothing but his writing.

There was an interesting part in the story that slants towards a religious theme. He writes, "It was nothing that he knew too well. It was all a nothing and a men was nothing too. It was on

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Approximate Word count = 1098
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)