In the following essay, Dell'Amico discusses Hemingway's short story within the context of the art movement known as modernism. The story's aesthetic minimalism is presented as an integral style of this movement, and the significance of this style is examined as a historical posture.

What stands out about "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" is its minimalism. Known for simple sentences and simple diction, Hemingway positively outdoes himself in this famous short story. In the most pared down English imaginable, three nameless and unexceptional characters rehearse a brief, nocturnal scene. Thus, this story ostentatiously extols the virtues of the simple. This minimalism is so very dramatic, in fact, one feels that complexity or sophistication is not simply precluded, but actually written against.In writing such stripped-down prose and narrative, Hemingway counters the era which precedes him. Nineteenth-century prose and narrative is, by contrast, the epitome of ornateness and complexity...