When confronting a world that is meaningless, how is someone who has rejected all of the old values, someone who is now completely alone - how is that person supposed to face this barren world? How is that person able to avoid the darkness of nada, or nothingness? This is exactly what the story is about: nothingness and the steps we take against it.
What then is the theme of this story? Nothing, or nothingness. In fact, because there is no plot, Hemingway enables us to focus absolutely on the story's meaning - that is, in a world characterized by nothingness, what possible action could take place? Likewise, that no character has a name and that there is no characterization emphasize the sterility of this world. What do the characters stand for? Nothing. Until then, he must try to cope bravely with the dark nothingness of the night. The man who takes the order thinks that the old waiter is just another crazy old man he brings him coffee.įinishing the coffee, the older waiter begins his trudge homeward.
The young waiter leaves for home, and the older waiter walks to an all-night cafe where, thinking about the terrible emptiness of the old man's life which he keenly identifies with, he orders a cup of nada from the waiter. When the old man leaves, the waiters close the cafe. No doubt, that's the reason why the old man tried to hang himself last week.
He insults the deaf old man and is painfully indifferent to the older waiter's feelings when he states that "an old man is a nasty thing." The older waiter, however, realizes that the old man drinking brandy after brandy is not nasty he is only lonely. A young waiter is angry he wishes that the old man would leave so that he and an older waiter could close the cafe and go home. Late in the early morning hours, in a Spanish cafe, an old man drinks brandy.
0 kommentar(er)
