SOURCE: “Ernest Hemingway's Clean, Well-Lighted Heros,” in The Pacific Spectator: A Journal of Interpretation, Vol. IX, No. 4, Autumn, 1955, pp. 383-89.

In the following survey of the major characters of Hemingway's fiction, Allen asserts that anxiety is the defining feature of the characters in “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place.”

The Hemingway stories and novels are dominated by heroes who conduct a retreating battle with nature and the world's hostility. But they fight against their loss with pleasure, skill, and courage. The world of nature and humanity robs health, hope, and love, leaving in the end only nada, nothingness. Nothingness is opposed skillfully and zestfully with stoical integrity and courage, Hemingway's two chief themes.

This limited philosophy is not altogether satisfying, but even less satisfying is a tendency for Hemingway to mistake emotional immaturity for maturity. The “code” behavior of his stoical heroes and the motivation of the behavior are often...