SOURCE: “Character, Irony, and Resolution in ‘A Clean, Well-Lighted Place,’” in The Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway: Critical Essays, edited by Jackson J. Benson, Duke University Press, 1975, pp. 261-69.

In the following essay, which was originally published in American Literature in 1970, Bennett proposes that Hemingway's use of verbal irony provides insight into the main characters as well as evidence as to the attribution of dialogue in “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place.”

Interpretation of Hemingway's short story “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” has always been confronted with the illogical dialogue sequence between the two waiters. Since analysis probably became stalled on the question of which waiter knew about the old man's attempted suicide, interpretation has tended to center on either the older waiter's nada prayer or the problem of the illogical sequence itself.¹ The result seems to be a partial misinterpretation of the character of the younger waiter, a failure to...