Text Analysis

The Old Man

Author's Note- This is a response from the short story "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" that I turned in to an essay.  I am working on improving my score for text analysis and I am working hard on my introduction.

It was a quiet night, with a slight breeze from the east.  An old man walks in to a bar 20 minutes before closing.  Not just drinking to get drunk, but drinking to have someone with him.  To feel excepted and to take his mind off his insomnia.  The story has some brief descriptions of the scene that are a little different in the film version.  The story "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" starts off in a small cafe with an old man sitting by himself, while the two waiters in the cafe watch him to make sure he doesn't leave without paying.  There are some differences I noticed.

The title says "Well-Lighted," which means that it is a place where you can have a pleasant drink by yourself but still feel like you are in someones presence.  It is a quiet night in the bar with two waiters and an old man.  The lights are on at two o' clock with only one old man drinking a Brandi.  But the interesting part was half of the bar lights were out.  Then when they were closing up the cafe in the second part, the lights were all on.  It was a nice day but a odd feeling about the music too.

In the beginning of the first part of the films there was nice music but there were lower tones in it making it a very creepy feeling.  This was example of foreshadowing saying that something will happen but we don't know if it is good or bad.  You would figure that it would be bad when the waiters are talking about how he tried to hang himself.  It could mean that he is drinking to die again because he is depressed and is not wanting his life to go in the direction he wants.  But at the end it is the same music then at the beginning but it sounds less creepy and more peaceful.  This probably means that he had a good day but the pain will be put on someone else.

The older waiter was supposed to go to more of a bodega then a cafe in the story.  The small bar that he went to was nice and calm, but was strange.  It was lighted well, but not well enough.  When the waiter orders a drink he examines but does not sit and spends about five minutes in the bar.  I think that the old man is what the waiter will represent in the future by the way he acted in the bar.  It seemed like he felt out of place, like he didn't want to be with anyone else.  He may not realize it but the old man could be him someday.  It rethought the mind of the waiter and helped him realize his inner self.

The symbolism in this story mainly focuses on the little things such as the lights.  But the big picture may lie in the directors way of perceiving how he thinks the waiter feels.  The old man has passed on the humbleness through a cafe which symbolizes a calm place where lonely people can find hope.