I Was Absent...

So last week, I was absent from school Wed-Fri. Mr. Kunkle informed me that I had to write either 3 make-up free write journals or 3 make-up blog posts. So, I wrote 1 FWJ and decided that I prefer blogging.

While I was away, I read the short story assigned to the class, A Clean Well Lighted Place by Earnest Hemingway. I had actually never read anything by him and have always been curious since he is so famous, and was excited (weird!) to read this short story.

Effect. I really liked it.

Overview. An 80 year-old well-off deaf man sits in the same bar every night and gets drunk until they will no longer serve him brandy. There are two waiters working this particular night, one is older and the other young.

What it do? There was so much I liked about it! First off, I would like to point out the potential symbolism I saw in the personalities of the waiters. The young waiter just wanted the old man to leave because it was 2 am and he had a wife at home waiting for him. He had no respect for the man and looked down on him as if he was a disgrace. Why would he be drinking so much every night if he was rich? He should be happy, that's what the younger waiter thought. The older waiter, however, had more grace for the old man. He seemed to know where his intentions were at and was much more accepting towards the man's life style. He almost pitied him. One must wonder if perhaps the older waiter knows something the younger does not? Perhaps there's a deep and sad story behind the man's life. In the story, he says to the younger waiter, "he had a wife too once..." this makes you think, where is she now? Dead?

How lonely it is to be old. To just want to go somewhere else other than your home where memories fester, good and bad. Where they taunt you about your age and your past. I believe this man just wanted a "clean well lighted place" where he felt he didn't need to be anyone different than the person he wanted to be in that very moment.

The line, "The waiter watched him go down the street, a very old man walking unsteadily but with dignity," makes the reader pity the man, and almost feel where he's coming from, in just one line, I felt respect for the old, deaf man. If you didn't, read it again! =)