A Clean, Well-Lighted Place Characters

This Study Guide consists of approximately 79 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of A Clean, Well-Lighted Place.

A Clean, Well-Lighted Place Characters

This Study Guide consists of approximately 79 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of A Clean, Well-Lighted Place.
This section contains 347 words
(approx. 1 page at 400 words per page)
Buy the A Clean, Well-Lighted Place Study Guide

Old Man

The old man is drowning his sorrows in drink, and his sorrows grow out of loneliness, if we are to believe the old waiter (the old man lives alone, his wife now dead). However, lest this turning to drink be interpreted as weakness, the author is careful to depict the old man as being punctiliously neat and controlled in his despair. He does not, after all, spill a drop. Rather, the old man is a heroic drunk, one whose pursuit of oblivion is depicted as a reasonable, even noble course of action in a world which can be too much for certain souls to withstand. Where the younger waiter seems to feel not enough, this man seems to feel too much.

Old Waiter

The older waiter, in contrast to the selfish younger one, is a sympathetic man. He knows the old man's history and identifies with it...

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This section contains 347 words
(approx. 1 page at 400 words per page)
Buy the A Clean, Well-Lighted Place Study Guide
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