Literary modernism in the early 20th century, as exemplified by the works of Ernest Hemingway, was a reaction to the chaos and confusion of the era brought on by factors such as World War I. It broke with traditional romantic styles of writing and embraced experimentation, stream of consciousness, and psychological complexity. It manifested in characteristics such as realistic details, fragmented or internalized perspectives, irony, blatant sexuality, and anti-heroism.
The so-called Lost Generation of American writers, who chose to live abroad in the wake of World War I, included Hemingway. These writers used modernism as a means to make sense of their confusing world. Hemingway's modernism took the form of paring away all extraneous language and using extremely simple sentences. His characters also appear simple on the surface, but the reader catches glimpses of underlying complexity and psychological intensity.
First published in 1933, the famous short story "A Clean Well Lighted Place" is a classic example of Hemingway's modernistic approach. The language is simple and basic, without any frills. The story is a truncated set piece, seemingly without a beginning or an ending. The action that takes place is rudimentary; all that appears to happen is that an old man has a few drinks at a cafe, the waiters talk about him and about their lives, and then the old man and the waiters go home. And yet beneath the surface, there is significant psychological impact. The old man has recently tried to commit suicide, and the old waiter suffers from insomnia. Each of them sees great value in the clean, quiet, well-lit cafe that offers them relief from the confusion and isolation of their empty lives.
Very few modernists were avowed nihilists, but in challenging prevailing ideas they often gave that impression. It's not so much that modernists didn't believe in anything, more that they believed that the old certainties had been swept away in the post-war cultural malaise and that new ideas needed to take their place.
To some extent, the older waiter is a representative of the modernist attitude in miniature. His mocking invocation of the Lord's Prayer, with its refrain of "nada," or nothing, pithily expresses the sense of crisis and disillusionment which descended upon Hemingway and the other members of the so-called Lost Generation. Like a whole generation of modernist artists, the old waiter doesn't really belong in the modern world; he has no "clean, well-lighted" place to call home. He's cut adrift from his fellow man, forced back on his own resources to find his own truth in the midst of an alienating world where everything suddenly seems to have lost all meaning.
Modernist short story writers such as Hemingway often abandoned traditional structures in their writing. Modernism in the literary and visual arts sought to communicate the feelings of fragmentation and disenchantment with traditional ways of thinking and valuing in the wake of World War I. Modern writers would sometimes omit exposition and conclusion, putting more responsibility on the reader to construct meaning.
In "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place," from 1933, Hemingway explores his "iceberg theory" of writing, indicating that what is above the surface, or seen explicitly, is a small expression of larger issues looming beneath.
Because of the lack of exposition, readers know next to nothing about the two waiters, the old man who visits the cafe, the reason for his apparent despair, or the political or social situation of the area they inhabit. Readers must be willing to accept that they are more or less dropped into a situation that they will have to figure out themselves. The lack of information about the men other than the opposing attitudes of the waiters is an expression of the encounters of modern life. They can be fleeting and fragmentary, leaving us to assign our own meaning to them.
The story also lacks a conclusion. The two waiters close the cafe. The old man presumably goes home, but the older waiter reflects on the meaningless nature of life, including religious practices, and has a small drink. He heads home knowing that insomnia awaits, speculating that others have it as well. Hemingway doesn't offer any resolution or overtly assign meaning, and like the older waiter, readers are left to only to observe and exist separately from others who construct their own meanings.
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