Hemingway's purpose in this story is a description of a modern man and his constant fight with life. He begins it with self-realization of being alive and ends it with a return to the normal course of life, which carries a meaning of recreation.

To be conscious of existing, to ask why and come up with a flashback of the events that have occurred before in a fragmented way without details, and the use of darkness and the discovery through feeling and touching illustrate the ambiguity and complexity of life. What has happened to Nick? There is no detailed answer to this question; just he has been deceived, a deception like in the fall of man caused by lack of experience and naivety.

Nick is thrown to face his destiny in a dark unknown place with only one hope, the fire--only one fire and no other choices. In that place, Nick has to fight and is a loser from the beginning, taking into account the experience of Ad, and to suffer to gain experience. The only experience that Nick has is a black eye; and what is a black eye compared with a mutilated face? But Nick has to face his destiny.

Destiny throws him in the hands of a crazy man, who welcomes him as one like him: "Have you ever been crazy." Nick rejected this situation when he says "I'm going on to town." This fact of rejection of one's position and holding on the idea of a return illustrate the image of a man constant fight with life. Although nick is doomed to lose, he clings to life and fights for it. Whatever the result that might be Nick is conscious of the fact that he is there to learn, though with sufferance, and to return back to his live--to die.

Hemingway distinguishes between two lives: an eternal one, where there is light and from where Nick has been thrown, and a short, dark and miserable one, where knowledge and experience are acquired through sufferance and constant fight.