The essence of existentialism plays a prominent role in Ernest Hemingway's short story "A Clean, Well-Lit Place" by emphasizing the idea of ​​life as a void of chaotic nothingness. In the opening paragraph, Hemingway's immediate diagnosis of the old man's condition as a suicidal drunkard despite his wealth demonstrates the idea that despair is impartial and that those imposed by the awareness of nothingness become find themselves with the desire to associate their internal inabilities with temporary physical relief. . Hemingway's dogma describes the self-paralyzing effects of the terrible awareness that a person's life is essentially meaningless, creating a deep sense of emotional disarray and existential questioning that, by extension, renders everything else equally meaningless. of meaning. , Well-Lighted Place” doesn’t seem to have much merit. It is a plotless story, lacking substance to nourish the mind, but upon careful reading, the simplicity of the story is enough to engender an intense insight into sentimental worthlessness. The first signs of this emotional oppression by nothingness are found in the opening dialogue between two waiters at a cafe who discuss why an old man is attempting suicide. They conclude that the reason is “Nothing.” He has a lot of money” (Hemingway 167). It is obvious that the old man is experiencing a despair that he believes can only be assuaged by death. His plan having failed, sobriety is unbearable for him, so he “[sits] in the shade the leaves of the tree [are] against the electric light” of a café every evening well beyond the stay other customers; sometimes he drinks to the point of forgetting to pay (Hemingway 167). The literal darkness in which the old man is enveloped is symbolic: the black, which is the...... middle of paper...... his niece, still young and unconscious, believes she has him saved and given him the chance of an eternal afterlife, but the old man finds no viability in religion and was actually trying to escape his current life (Bassett 1). “A clean, well-lit place” is so cleverly designed to describe the idea of ​​nothingness that the story itself is designed to leave the reader with nothing. The minimal details, short, flat dialogue, and lack of plot force the reader to feel the internal chaos represented by the old man and the older waiter. There is no happy ending or explanation, only a nagging need to occupy one's mind elsewhere, to not think about what has been read, to find a clean, lit place. Although the story advocates a lack of meaning, the meaning of the story is clear: everything in life means nothing, alienation is inevitable, and death is a sweet finality...