Throughout your life you follow a path. The farther you go the more you gain such as family, friends, and faith. The older you get, and as the path becomes shorter the experiences you gain begin to fade. And as you go along the light at the end of the tunnel doesn't seem as bright and beautiful as it seemed. In the short story, A Clean Well Lighted Place, the author Ernest Hemingway shows through the darkness of night, and lightness of day that without fulfilment life is pointless. Through both the imagery and repetition of the cafe and the night, we see how one’s life can evolve into nothingness.

To begin with, the use of Hemingway’s imagery helps to express the gap between purpose and the feeling of worthlessness. The cafe had always been a sanctuary for those that felt despair. Hemingway uses the character of the old man to demonstrate that, “In the day time the street was dusty, but at night the dew settled the dust and the old man liked to sit late because he was deaf and now at night it was quiet and he felt the difference” (Hemingway 1).  We can conclude, that during the day people hurry through life without realizing they won’t be young forever. Young people rush through life so sudden that when they are old, like the man in the story, they don’t know what to do. They are filled with despair. Everything slows down and becomes nothing. Such as, “but at night the dew settled the dust and the old man liked to sit late because he was deaf and now at night it was quiet and he felt the difference” (1). The old man was alone and was filled with misery. Hemingway captured that moment to show the difference between the joy in life and the unsettling misery in the end. Later in the story Hemingway also stressed the concept of nothingness with the old waiter. He reluctantly closed down the cafe. The old waiter walking into the night had many ambiguous thoughts, “What did he fear? It was not a fear or dread. It was a nothing that he knew too well. It was all a nothing and a man was nothing too. It was only that and light was all it needed and a certain cleanness and order” (Hemingway 5). The old waiter’s thoughts put a disturbing image in our heads. He turns the concept of life into a fear. The image hemingway is portraying never gets clearer. He puts these vague words that can be interpreted in numerous ways. He never really clarifies what the nothing he is implying. It leaves us putting the pieces together in our minds. The use of imagery gives us a better understanding of the darkness. To me the nothing he is implying is the will the get up and live life. I see the old waiter walk into the danger of the unknown. You grasp the idea that the people who journey through the darkness question the meaning of their life. Then Hemingway manipulates our minds to finish the picture with the clean well lighted cafe. This image helps us understand that people who venture into a clean lighted place they usually have a purpose to being there. It creates a salvation and a safe haven. They aren’t rushing through life, they don't question their existence. The light in life keeps us going and it gives us a plan to live by. The vivid description of the light and dark of our lives brings the story to life. Hemingway wields our minds to create a idealistic atmosphere of the contrast between the two.

Moving further, Hemingway uses the power of repetition to further express the ideas the life is pointless when you lose your will to live. Many of the characters utilize repetition to express their opinions.  Such as the older waiter when he experiences the night. “Some lived in it and never felt it but he knew it all was nada y pues nada y nada y pues nada. Our nada who art in nada, nada be thy name thy kingdom nada thy will be nada in nada as it is in nada. Give us this nada our daily nada and nada us our nada as we nada our nadas and nadas us not into nada but deliver us from nada; pues nada. Hail nothing full of nothing, nothing is with thee” (Hemingway 5). Hemingway uses the constant use of nada to accentuate the opinions of the older waiter. Hemingway uses the characters repeated internal thought to continue expressing the common theme of nothingness throughout the story. The words nada, meaning nothing in Spanish, replace the words of religion and faith. Replacing the words of prayer reveals the controversial debate that religion is nothing. But, to many of us religion is what we turn to when things get rough or when we lose our way. However, the older waiter starts to question what's the point of religion, why have faith when it's nothing. And that leaves us to assume that he rarely has gotten up to go to church on sunday, he rarely ever says grace at the dinner table. He doesn't have that faith to wake up to. Because of that void he was filled with despair and needed a sanctuary to hide out at. The cafe symbolized a place of control, the older waiter goes to the cafe to temporarily forget his state of despair. His state of despair forces him to take refuge at a place of substance, a place he could be anchored to. That’s why the older waiter thought it was necessary to stay open late for those who desired to have a place to be anchored to. For those who wander around aimlessly through the dark and have lost their way. Hemingway utilizes repetition to capture the essence of the darkness in life and how we try to patch it up with a little light and substance.

In conclusion, our path we follow will someday end. But as we walk down our path we lose and gain many parts of us, yet in the end we lose ourselves. Our lives become meaningless and we question our purpose of even living. This is portrayed through the blackness of the night, and the lightness of day. Hemingway uses the power of imagery and the impact of repetition to emphasize that the path we follow will ultimately lead us to a unfulfilled end.