Abstract
Ernest Hemingway is one of the outstanding American short-story writers in the twentieth century. His works are so noted for profound ideas and abundant connotations that they are popular with readers. He is a representative of the Lost Generation. His works are based on his own special experiences, the environment and the age he lived in. Almost all of his works reflect the pessimistic nihilism. The short story A Clean and Well-lighted Place was one of Hemingway’s early works. It is a classical short story with nihilism, assuming typical Hemingway’s style, that is, taking Nothingness as the theme and employing abundant simple sentences. In the work, Hemingway, based on the story between the old man and the two waiters, pointed out that Nada commonly exists in human’s life, it is actually the experience of one’s own existence, and the only way to resist Nada is to keep a clean and well-lighted place in the mind.
In order to understand the work and the author’s ideas completely and thoroughly, this thesis makes an analysis of the novel from different angles, including Hemingway’s biography, the writing background of the novel, the main characters in the novel and the theme of Nada. Through the analysis, the thesis encodes the origin and the essence of Nada.
Key Words
Hemingway; Lost Generation; a clean and well-lighted place; Nada (Nothingness)
摘 要
海明威是二十世纪美国著名短篇小说家，其作品思想深刻，内容丰富，脍炙人口。海明威是“迷惘的一代”的代表人物，其作品的创作思想大多来源于他的个人经历以及他生活的环境和时代，作品大都反映了悲观的虚无思想。短篇小说《一个干净明亮的地方》是海明威的早期作品，是一部典型的虚无主义小说，具有典型的海明威风格：文章以虚无思想为主题并大量使用简洁句。在这篇小说中，海明威通过老人和两位服务员的故事阐明虚无是普遍存在的，虚无是对存在的体验，人类只有在内心保持一片干净明亮的地方才能抵御虚无。
为了正确理解该篇小说以及作者的思想，本文从不同角度分析了作家和作品，包括对海明威生平的研究，小说的写作背景、主要人物和虚无主题的分析，阐明了小说虚无思想的起源和本质。
关键词
海明威；迷惘的一代；干净明亮的地方；虚无思想
Introduction
Ernest Hemingway is a well-known American writer in the twentieth century. His works have unique characteristics both in theme and writing style. Some critics think that his works are based on his own experiences and the time when he lived. Actually, Hemingway’s life was full of romance. He experienced many wars in his life. Because his works reflect the hurt that the war brings to human being and describe the loss of the beliefs of the generation after the World War I, he is regarded as the spokesman of the Lost Generation.
Hemingway’s short story A Clean and Well-Lighted Place was written in his early time, and is one of classical works of Hemingway’s style as well. In this short story, he mostly used short and simple sentences. The theme of nothingness is a controversial and popular topic in modern literature. In order to understand the novel and the author’s minds, this thesis makes an analysis of the novel from different angles, including the general biography of Hemingway, the writing background of the novel, the characters in the novel, the writing style of the short story, and the theme of nada.
In the past, some people thought Hemingway’s minds were pessimistic, and A Clean and Well-Lighted Place was a classic novel of nihilism. In the author’s opinion, A Clean and Well-Lighted Place makes the readers to ponder over the meaning of life and is worthy of reading and studying.
I. The Background of the Author and the Novel
Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) is a well-known American novelist and short story writer in modern times, and one of the most celebrated and influential authors in the twentieth century. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1954 for his short story—The Old Man and the Sea. Moreover, when referring to Hemingway, he is always related with the Lost Generation. It is certain that Hemingway’s life is full of romance. His special experience makes his works represent a generation, and still has a great influence on modern literature. If Hemingway’s novel is studied, it is definite to make a research on Ernest Hemingway himself at first.
A. The General Biography of Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway was born in a doctor family in Chicago in 1899. When he was a child, he liked fishing and hunting. He often spent his summer outdoors with his father. This experience made him adapt to the outdoor life.
In 1917, after being graduated from the Middle School, Hemingway became a journalist of the Star Time，where he received strict professional training as a journalist.
During the First World War, because of the eye illness, Hemingway cannot join the army in the front. He finally volunteered to join the Red Cross of America and became a driver in the ambulance corps. In one mission of rescuing the wounded, Hemingway was seriously wounded and then went back to his hometown. He quickly became a hero at that time. Later, he went to Paris and expatriated there as a journalist of the Star Time of Canada. Since then, Hemingway started his life of literature production.
Most of these works take the war as background, describing the pains the war brings to human being, and reflecting a younger generation’s aimlessness after the war. At that time, these works immediately won the responses from many people who survived the war physically but were afterwards spiritually and morally adrift. Then, Hemingway became the spokesman for what the Gertrude Stein had called “The Lost Generation”.
Hemingway is famous for his literary style: simple, understated, and direct. He was at his best describing physical activity. His short story A Clean and Well-Lighted Place was written in his early time, which has a typical Hemingway’s style.
Hemingway successfully created a series of characters, who suffered a lot but still kept dignity. Unfortunately, he finally chose to commit suicide to end his life. As it has been mentioned above, Hemingway experienced many wars in all his life. In the middle of 1930s, he went to Span, becoming the reporter of battlefield about Spanish Civil War. During the World War II, he was a soldier against the fascist. The war had left endless pains both on his body and spirit. Like the characters he created, he preferred to choose dignity.
B. The Lost Generation
Lost Generation is a literature school original in American in the twentieth century. Lost Generation refers to the generation after the World War I. Meanwhile, it also refers to the young writers who lived as expatriates in Western Europe for a short time. Besides Hemingway, there is Lewis Mumford, Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, Matthew, Sherwood Anderson, and many other novelists. The Lost Generation is also called the Sad Young Man by F. Scott Fitzgerald in his book which describes the disillusioned younger generation after the First World War.
The Lost Generation’s writers held many common points. At first, all of them were weary of the imperialistic wars but cannot find the way out. Expatriation was another common point. Many young writers had an experience living in the European countries, especially in Paris. Although the government pronounced “recovering the atmosphere before the war”, war had left deep hurt in people’s heart. Therefore, the writers’ self-exile became the way escaping from the reality.
Actually, the young people’s rebellion was inevitable. It must be remembered that the revolt was not confined within the United States, but affected the entire Western world as the result of the aftermath of the first serious war in a century. Although the government was reluctant to admit, the United States was not isolated from the outside world any more. The October Revolution quickly swept across all over the world, and exposed the inherent contradiction of capitalism. The booming of the industry made the traditional value out of work at that time.
The war acted as a direct blasting fuse. The young people’s revolt started with the World War I. At the beginning of the war, people were still idealistic towards the war with the typical American adventurousness. By the strenuous jingoism Theodore Roosevelt’s enhancement, the young men began to enlist under foreign flags. At the same time, all the media such as radios, televisions and newspapers propagated the optimism at the front. Moreover, the government tried its best to persuade the youth to join “the glorious war” under the slogan of “democracy” through which they could realize their personal value. Thus the young men of college age who knew little about modern warfare took part in the European conflicts with the idealistic dream against war and the excitement of the military adventure. However, after witnessing the massacre of human being and tasting the cruelty of modern warfare, the young men began to realize that the war was not the one they thought before. They felt cheated by the government. This turning of mind made them angry.
After being fed up with the pains of the war, a lot of soldiers returned home. However, it was despaired to return to a home town totally untouched by the wars and they found their old jobs had been taken by those who did not join in the war. Because of the recession of economy, they could not find a new job. At the same time, the small villages they lived in were uncomfortable to them. They found that the citizens still talked about the war bombastically, which made them guilty for two or three years.
The “Lost Generation” was never lost actually. In the book—Backgrounds of American Literature Thought , it was written that “It (The Lost Generation) was shocked, uprooted for a time, bitter critical, rebellious, iconoclastic, experimental, often absurd, more often misdirected—but never ‘lost’”. (Zhang Hanxi, P165, 1995) The achievement in literature can prove this point of view. A lot of great works was produced by the Lost Generation. Generally speaking, the Lost Generation was a group of people who were sobered up by the War.
II. The General Introduction to the Novel
A. The Writing Style of A Clean and Well-lighted Place
As it has been mentioned above, Hemingway helped to accomplish a revolution in literature style and language. He tried to cut out all the words that were not necessary. His style was characterized by short and simple sentences with a few adjectives and adverbs. In his short story A Clean and Well-lighted Place, Hemingway used a lot of conversations to compare the middle aged waiter with the young waiter. In the short story, the sentences have only one or several words.
In the short story, Hemingway also used meaningful symbols to convey deep meanings, which is worthy of studying and thinking over.
B. The Characters of the Novel
The short story A Clean and Well-lighted Place took place in a Spanish café. The plot was focused on the old man, the middle aged waiter and the young waiter.
The old man was the main character in the short story. Late at night, everyone had left the café except the old deaf man, who was a little drunk. The two waiters were worried that he might leave without paying if he became deeply drunk. Then they kept watch on him and began their conversation about the old man.
“Last week he tried to commit suicide,” one waiter said.
“Why?”
“He was in despair.”
“What about?”
“Nothing.”
“How do you know it was nothing?”
At first glance of the short story, it seemed difficult to understand why the old man wanted to commit suicide just for nothing. However，through the following conversation, more information can be learned about the old man.
“He’s drunk now,” he said.
“He’s drunk every night.”
“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.”
“Why did they do it?”
“Fear for his soul.”
“How much money has he got?”
“He’s got plenty.”
“He must be eighty years old.”
“Anyway I should say he was eighty”
“I wish he would go home. I never get to bed before three o’clock. What kind of hour is that to go to bed?
“He stays up because he likes it.”
“He is lonely. I’m not lonely. I have a wife waiting in bed for me.”
“He had a wife once too.”
“A wife would be no good to him now.”
“You can’t tell. He might be better with a wife.”
“His niece looks after him. You said she cut him down.”
“I know.”
“I wouldn’t want to be that old. An old man is a nasty thing.”
“Not always. This old man is clean. He drinks without spilling. Even now, drunk. Look at him.”
The old man’s character is complex. Being depressed but still keeping dignity was the old man’s image created by Hemingway, which fits the image of “Hemingway Hero”. On one hand, the old man was weak, despaired and extremely unhappy. He had a lot of money but lost belief. He stopped believing in anything that might have been significant in the past. For him, Nothingness meant hopelessness, aimlessness and meaninglessness of the life. The old man tried to commit suicide but failed. Then he liked to sit late in the café—a clean and well-lighted place to buy drunk. Special attention should be paid to that the old man’s deafness was an image symbolizing his separation from the rest of the world. The old man needed a place of refuge from his terrible awareness of that human lives were meaningless. On the other hand, though the old man was in despair, he still kept dignity. In the short story, there are many sentences describing the old man’s dignity. Hemingway once said that a man could be destroyed but not defeated. Moreover, the old man was deaf and lonely, but he was not defeated spiritually.
The young waiter was selfish and impatient. He had a wife waiting for him to go home, so he wanted the old deaf man to leave as soon as possible. Therefore, he became angry and impolite. He intentionally poured the brandy out of the cup. His bad service formed a strong contrast with the old man’s cleanness. He did not sense the dignity the old man had about him. Furthermore, the young waiter was ignorant and blindly confident. He was so concerned with the daily routines and desires that he did not care about the others. He could not understand the old man. He did not realize what he had, such as job, wife and confidence, was unreliable because he was young. He thought that money should keep a person be happy. He meant that the old man had no reason to kill himself because he was rich. Poverty, in his opinion, would be the only excuse for suicide.
The middle aged waiter was more sympathetic. He knew the importance of a clean and well-lighted place for those who need a refuge to escape from the reality. He knew the old man’s suffering and was sympathized with him. Therefore, he did not think it was bad for the old man to stay in the café late into the night.
Through the analysis above, it is known that Hemingway took the two waiters as known information, and the old man as unknown information. There was a sharp contrast between the youth and oldness, between the old and young waiters. In fact, the old man, the middle aged waiter and the young waiter represent the youth, the middle age and the old age in the different stages of life. In each stage, people have different attitudes towards life and they lead different ways of life. At the same time, the three typical characters also reflect the people’s spiritual state after the WWI in American society.
C. The Theme of the Novel
The short story A Clean and Well-lighted Place was one of Hemingway’s most compact stories. It talks about loneliness, which Hemingway considered to be the principal tragedy of modern life. Nada (Nothingness) was an important theme of this story. Nearly all the characters live in Nada. For the old man, Nada means hopelessness, aimlessness and meaninglessness of life, which was the exact reason for the old man’s suicide. He tried to kill himself, by which he thought he could make himself get rid of the earthly affairs. The middle aged waiter was aware of what the old man suffered. He knew the old man’s today was his tomorrow. He knew the importance of a clean and well-lighted place to those who need a refuge to escape from loneliness. However, he had to leave the café at the end of the novel. The young waiter lived in Nada as well, even if he did not realize it. His ignorance makes a strong contrast with the old man’s wisdom. He was unaware of what he had. For him, the life was another kind of meaninglessness, because he was blindly confident with the unreliable youth.
The theme of Nada consists of three forms: the consciousness of death, the awareness of bitterness and the consciousness of absurdity. Hemingway was good at describing death. If his otherworks are read, it can be found that there are a lot of works involved with the topic of death. In the short story A Clean and Well-lighted Place, even if there is no bloody description, no subject about bull fighting, war, and violence and so on, the death can still be felt and touched. The awareness of bitterness can be found in this short story as well. The characters in the short story were despaired, depressed and aimless.
Ⅲ. Encoding the Theme——Nada
As Nada (Nothingness) is the theme of the short story A Clean and Well-lighted Place, does Hemingway lose his way in the pessimism? The novel involves the theme of death and fear, how to understand the theme of the short story correctly? In order to answer these questions, at first, it is necessary to make a study of the origin and essence of Nada.
A. The Origin of Nada
Some scholars think Hemingway’s idea of Nada comes from the ancient philosophy of pessimism. Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900) was one of the important philosophers in ancient western countries. According to Nietzsche, Nada was a historic movement. Nietzsche pronounced “the God was dead” and it was human being’s own idea that the almighty God would help them. As well as it is known, in western countries and the United States, religion plays a very important part in people’s everyday life. People believe in God, and they regard God as the almighty and supreme spaninity who creates and dominates the entire creature. In the belief of Christianity, people believe in human being’s original sin. Only if one believes in the God, he can be saved. However, when Nietzsche pronounced “the God was dead”, it meant that the belief of religion, which was once the spirit pillar for thousands of years, collapsed. In fact, Nada reveals the rootlessness of human’s beliefs.
The rootlessness of human being’s beliefs did not appear accidentally. It was an outcome of the development of industry. At the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth century, the first industrial revolution took place in Britain and quickly influenced the western countries and the United States. The industrialization brought great benefits to people. At the same time, it led to many problems as well. For example, since the widely setting up of the factories, the atmosphere was full of roaring and large scale of aggressiveness. In order to satisfy the needs of industries, people exhausted energy resources. The pollution of the environment accompanied the industrialization and mechanization. The technical invention did not bring actual benefits to the poor. In the rural area, factories and railways took up the fertile farm land. Then farmers lost their homes and transformed to be workers. Work done by machines had replaced manual labour. The workers were assembled in a place and their work time was prolonged, but the payment was lowered. The fatal flaw of the capitalism was exposed. The worker’s movement was put on in capital society. On one hand, the great changes in people’s everyday life led to the revolution in social thoughts. The Victorian structure, which was based on the Puritan morality and the capitalist rationalism, was up-to-date. In the less competitive age, people followed the code of polite behavior, but now it did not adapt to the new situation and people’s value tends to be various. On the other hand, in the past, religion was once the spirit spiller of people’s minds, but now it is difficult to find a core value which can guide people’s behaviors.
The war intensified the loss of people’s beliefs. Since human being lived on the earth, the wars broke out constantly. In order to pursue earthly materials, human being fought with each other. Finally the fittest survived and conquered the world. Then they thought they were strong enough that they could not be defeated. However, they could not escape from loneliness because of the loss of beliefs. The two world wars in the twentieth century were unprecedented disasters in human’s history. The First World War was in fact an imperialistic war which was on the purpose of robbing the energy resource and labor. The disequilibrium development between the developing countries and developed countries and between the imperialistic countries was the origin of the wars. Modern industrialization needed numerous energy resources, nature labor and capital. In order to satisfy this demand, the imperialists planned and launched the war under the mask of “glorious war”. However, the result of the war was despairing. On one hand, the war did not reach the purpose which people expected. The imperialistic countries did not gain much benefit from the war, but were fed up with the destruction of the war. On the other hand, after the WWI, in the western countries and the United States, people who survived from the frontiers found that they were cheated by the government, and the emotion of despair and suspicion quickly spread.
The rootlessness of human being’s beliefs is embodied in two aspects, that is, lifestyle and spiritual state. As for lifestyle, some young people bravely rebelled against the traditional morality. They went to the illegal bars, played jazz and defied the law. The Money Worship and Hedonism were popular for a long time. As for spiritual state, people did not believe in anything. They seemed to lose the direction of the future. They felt that life was meaningless. Even if they led a life of rebellion and tried to escape from the reality, they found that they did not gain the happiness exactly. Instead, they felt lonely, despaired and depressed because of the loss of beliefs.
At the same time, the panic resulted from the loss of beliefs was reflected in literature. A lot of works described the depression of the loss of beliefs after the war. It should be known that people can not lose the beliefs for a long time. They must choose some belief to guide their activities of remaking the world. Literature should give response to the questions: what is the world human being lives in; what is the meaning of human being’s existence. In the past, the popular answers to these questions were focused on the religion which held that human being was limited, uncompleted and worthless. But in modern literature, some writers suspected the absolute authority of religion and they tried to answer the questions from human being itself. They believed that man is nothing but what he made of himself. As an inspanidual and active existence, each man should have the freedom of choice. A man becomes a man only when he thinks his own thoughts, lives his own life and keeps his own inspaniduality.
B. The Essence of Nada
What is Nada? In the last part of the short story A Clean and Well-lighted Place, there is an evaluation about nada:
Nada (nothingness) was not “fear or dread” which seemed like a very abstract notion. According to Martin Heidegger, the philosopher of nihilism after Nietzsche, Nothingness contained all outside efforts imposed on people. Nada was boundless and beyond description, but no one can escape from it whether it can be realized or not. Moreover, Heidegger thought that Nothingness was different from fear and dread. In Heidegger’s philosophical system, he regarded human being’s living state as three concepts: Sorge, Furcht and Angst, Death. (夏基松, P65,1987). In fact, Sorge refers to worry and anxiety. People live in the world and are related with the surroundings. They are worried that they might lose something and can not protect themselves. Heidegger pointed out that human being’s feeling of worry and anxiety was actually the self-examination. Heidegger demonstrated that one can realize his own existence. Human being’s worry and anxiety produced the feeling of dissatisfaction. Therefore, they dared to challenge the reality. Furcht and Angst is different from the fear and dread usually used in daily life, because one’s fear and dread are some concrete things that can be seen and touched. The concept of Furcht and Angst is abstract. It is uncertain but commonly exists. Heidegger also believed that death is inevitable.
Nada commonly exists no matter whether it is realized or not. In the short story A Clean and Well-lighted Place, the characters all lived in Nada. The old man was rich but money could not bring happiness to him. Nothingness was what the old man wanted to escape from, so he tried to commit suicide but failed. Then he hid himself in a clean and well-lighted place to buy drunk. The small café was a refuge to escape from loneliness, but at last he had to leave the café. The young waiter was unaware of what he had, such as job, wife and confidence, but he would be old and lose what he once had. Hence, the youth, money and confidence can not help one withstand the metaphorical darkness.
According to the analysis above, it is not difficult to understand that Nada is actually the experience of one’s own existence. Nada does not lead to pessimism, and it is the thorough understanding of life.
A Clean and Well-lighted Place was a story of the coexistence of “Being” and “Nothingness”. The old man hid himself in the shadow. The undisturbed and untouched peace of night made him feel the difference. To a deaf person, the silence at night brought him relief and consolation after the day’s noise. In the short story, the lights, shadows, and the tidy café were full of symbolic meanings. The darkness symbolized Nada, while the lights symbolized the hope. Although Nada commonly exists in people’s life, the only way to resist the darkness is to keep a clean and well-lighted place in the soul, that is, love, dignity and sympathy.
Conclusion
Hemingway and his works had been studied for a long time. Some critics pointed out that Hemingway’s idea of Nothingness was based on his own experiences, his own living conditions and the pessimistic philosophical theories of the western countries. The short story A Clean and Well-lighted Place was Hemingway’s early work, assuming typical Hemingway’s style.
From the analysis above, it can be concluded that Nada is an important theme of the novel A Clean and Well-lighted Place. All the characters in the novel lived in Nada. Nada seemed like the destiny they could not break away from. In fact, Nada reveals the rootlessness of human being’s beliefs. Obviously, the characters in the short story A Clean and Well-lighted Place did not have beliefs. Through the three typical characters, the old man, the middle aged waiter and the young waiter, Hemingway delineated human being’s spiritual state after the First World War. Because of the industrial development and the War, People’s value tended to be various. People’s perplexity, loneliness, depression and rebellion actually reflected the great changes in social thoughts.
In the short story, Hemingway makes readers experience Nada. In his opinion, Nada commonly exists in people’s life no matter whether it is realized or not. Moreover, like the characters in the novel, he believed that people can not escape from Nada because of human being’s consciousness of his own existence. Nada is actually the experience of one’s own existence. Nada does not lead to pessimism, and it is the thorough understanding of life.
In the short story A Clean and Well-lighted Place, Hemingway used many symbols to convey deep meanings. The Nothingness and Existence coexist in the novel. The lights, shadows and a well lighted place all have symbolic meanings. Although Nada is the real feeling that people can not escape from, the only way to resist Nada is to keep a clean and well-lighted place in the soul, that is, love, sympathy and dignity.
Bibliography
[1] Zhang Hanxi. Advanced English. Peking: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 1995.
[2] Zhu Yu. European Culture. Peking: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 2005.
[3] Zhu Yongtao. Essentials of British and American Cultures. Peking: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 2005.
[4] 董衡巽．海明威研究[M]．北京：中国社会科学出版社，1985．
[5] 海德格尔．海德格尔选集[M]．上海：上海三联出版社，1981．
[6] 海明威．海明威短篇小说选[M]．上海：上海译文出版社，1981．
[7] 林恩．海明威传[M]．北京：中共中央党校出版社，1981．
[8] 李建军．祝福感与小说的伦理境界[J]．小说评论，2006，(4)．
[9] 迈耶斯．海明威传[M]．北京：中国卓越出版社，1990．
[14] 夏基松．存在主义哲学评述[M]．江苏：江苏人民出版社，1987．
