In both short
stories, Hemingway captures the tragic essence of life. In "A Clean Well-Lighted
Place," the older waiter whose sympathies lie with the old man point to the existential
condition of a man whose life has been simplified to "nada"--nothing with meaning--and
he must struggle to find some light in the darkness of nothingness. He does this by finding a
place that is clean and well-lighted where he can be with others. There, too, he can display
good form and conduct. Certainly, the old man with whom the waiter commiserates displays good
conduct as he sits in the cafe and "drinks without spilling."
Similarly, the wounded Harold Krebs, who has returned from World War I to his home in
Oklahoma finds that he no longer can relate to his family. Also, when "[A] distaste for
everything that had happened to him in the war set in because of the lies he had told,"
Krebs wants to leave town. Furthermore, he finds the girls in town "too complicated."
For, they, too, require certain lies and it "wasn't worth it. He did not want any
consequences." Krebs knows that he can no longer talk to the girls because the world in
which they exist is not the same as the world he inhabits.
So, Krebs,
sensing the tragic essence of life, tries to "keep his life from becoming
complicated." So, he packs his things to travel to Kansas City and goes one more time to
watch Helen play indoor baseball. In Kansas City Harold can maintain some sort of honor and
balance in his life by becoming detached.
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