Content Warning: The source text and this guide discuss suicide.

Ernest Hemingway’s “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” serves as a social commentary on the times in which it was written, exploring Modernist themes like Futility and Stagnation in Modern Society, Despair as a Human Condition, and Generational Divides and the Inevitability of Disillusionment. The story takes place almost entirely in a single setting, the clean, well-lighted café in which the two waiters work. Not much action occurs in the story, and most of the story and social commentary come through the three characters’ thoughts and dialogue. These three characters represent people adrift who are searching for meaning in a life that has become meaningless. They are prime examples of people struggling with essential, existential questions and looking to escape the new world in which they live, though that ultimately proves impossible; therefore, they come to a place of bleak acceptance or resignation.

The first hint of this meaninglessness occurs when the waiters begin to discuss the old man. After mentioning that he attempted suicide the previous week, the older waiter attributes his attempt to despair, caused by “nothing” (288).