"Why does the old man need the cafe?"

Why does the old man need the café?

In “A Clean, Well Lighted Place, Hemingway presents a short, concise narrative concerning the after hours life of an apparently suicidal old man and his daily attendance of a street-side cafe. Throughout the story, Hemingway leads us to ask the question, “Why does the old man need the café?” Hemingway answers this question by presenting two characters. These characters are of course the two waiters. The two waiters answer this question by their contrasting responses and attitudes toward the old man. One waiter, the older, more patient waiter, understands why the old man needs the café while the younger, hurried waiter does not understand why the old man or his fellow server would need the café at such an hour.

The old waiter confesses to be “of those who like to stay late at the café (159-70).” He also must understand those who need the café because he is sympathetic to their plight and sees his being at the café as a sort of service to his fellow man. He says, “Each night I am reluctant to close up because there may be some one who needs the café (159-71).” He sees the café as an important service to those in need, a sort of shelter that he must keep open as long as possible.

The younger waiter, on the other hand, is more detached from the needs of the old man and indeed his fellow server. He becomes severely resistant to the consideration of the needs of the old man. He even becomes bitter as he “wishes” that the old man had been successful in his suicide attempt. Later on in the story, Hemingway does partially excuse his behavior by saying “He did not wish to be unjust. He was only in a hurry (159-58).” He does not understand the old man’s need for the café and treats him more like a drunk or an alcoholic than a emotionally dependent regular.

Now, the question “Why the old man needs the café?” has not yet been answered but the dichotomy created by the two waiters’ attitudes and their physical and emotional differences laid out in the story is central to understanding the answer to this question. First we have the young, detached waiter. He is rash and impatient and temperamental to a certain extent, but he provides a reason for his hurry to get home. He has a wife and a family and a world out side the café. The older, understanding waiter responds by pointing out that he does not have a family anymore. He even confesses to lack any sort of confidence in himself or the world. The younger waiter has a support structure outside of the café. He has separate world that keeps him from getting lonely and gives him a purpose. The older waiter and the old man lack this support structure and purpose. The café gives them a refuge where they can attain a dignified sense of order and respectful, benevolent causality. It also gives them a place in which to connect with other human beings, if only for a second while ordering a drink.

The older waiter says, “I am of those who like to stay late at the café. With all those who do not want to go to bed. With all those who need a light for the night (159-70).” The older waiter and the old man are in some sense afraid of the dark, but the dark is not simply the absence of light. It is the loneliness and purposelessness that fills the void where their support systems or families or careers used to exist. Yes, it’s the nothing (or the nada) that they avoid. They go to the café to find something to center their lives around. The old man needs the café for his support system and his routine and purpose. He does not need the brandy, but he needs the respectable light of the café to satisfy his inherent hunger for self-worth and keep the loneliness and seeming pointlessness of his life from engulfing him in darkness.

The older waiter needs the café for much the same reason. He needs it to satisfy his need for purpose. The needs of the late-night café customers become his purpose in life. He keeps himself out of the dark by working at the café. And he does understand the old man because he identifies with him and his need of a respectable, dignified place to spend the nighttime hours. Those who need the café need somewhere to belong and somewhere to matter, so that a dark, uncaring universe does not swallow their humanity. (781)

"A&P" and "Flannery O'Connor"

“A&P”

This blog is supposed to be a tool for me to vocalize my literary thoughts. Okay. Forgive me if some of my thoughts are ridiculous or over-the-top or insignificant. When I think about A&P, I imagine this great mythical battle, covering some chaotic ethereal plain. The plain is engulfed in rage as orthodox conventionalists smash against non-conformists in furious struggle. It may sound mock heroic or somewhat melodramatic but I think this image in my head sincerely compliments the effectiveness of the story and the writing abilities of John Updike. To instill the image of this epic struggle between conformity and non-conformity in my head through the description of some girls’ entering a supermarket is an amazing accomplishment. I am predisposed to imagine such glorious battle but the description that Updike offers throughout the narrative inspires such a contrast between the forces of the usual and the unique—as well as their respective generals and champions—that the archetypal image of the battle between good and evil must be conjured in the back of every reader’s mind.

To go further, A&P resembles many of our most sacred archetypes and themes in several specific ways. First, we have the girls’ challenge to authority in the form of their entering the store scantily clad and their confrontation—even if it did not amount to fight, physical or metaphorical, in any way—with Mr. Lengel, the general, if you will, of the conformist legions. Although it is not a well-defined archetype, the challenge to authority is central to many of our classic story formats. Challenging authority is a world-wide theme that has been a part of American culture forever—or as long as we have existed, which is not very long actually.

The girls also contribute to another beloved archetype of our literary age. They--actually she, as only one of the girls attracts his full attention--inspire Sammy to champion the cause of non-conformity. They become the “maidens in distress” that ultimately cause Sammy to don his shining armor and rescue the fair Queenie and her companions from the wrath of Mr. Lengel and his hoards of obedient sheep. Sammy, our knight in shining armor, and Queenie, the fair maiden to which he devotes his glorious feat of bravery, fulfill another classic archetype of our culture.

To complement the girls’ challenge to authority, we see them starting a sort of revolution or rebellion in the store. You guessed it. Another archetype. The girls, and Queenie in particular, cause a wave of sensation to overcome several characters in the story. Only one quits, but this still constitutes a social rebellion of sorts against the tyranny of the A&P autocrat and his followers. Okay, it’s no Les Miserables but it still lives up to the revolution archetype that is central to much great literature, art and history.

To imagine a Thermopoly-like battle between conformity and it’s counterpart—the girls and Sammy being the Spartans, hopelessly outnumbered by the vast legions of Persian sheep—may be ridiculous or unnecessary, but the story does fit several classic literary archetypes that have spanned literary history back to the Homeric epics of history.


Flannery O’ Connor Stories

I don’t have a particular literary aspect of Flannery O’Connor stories in mind. What struck me about “Revelation” and “A Good Man is Hard to Find” is more of an overarching theme that applies to both of the stories. In both stories, God acts through human beings, not through impressive ecclesiastical miracles or acts of awe. In both stories, God’s grace is transferred into human beings—Mary Grace and the grandmother—and then used to affect others through human interactions—the ultimate recipients of these actions being Mrs. Turpin and the Misfit. The recipients of each story react differently but in both cases it is human action that attempts to change them. Perhaps O’Connor uses this human interaction to reject the biblical notion of heavenly intervention and to instead substitute the idea that human beings are responsible for improving the world through the inspiration offered by God. The one event that may be interpreted as a heavenly action is the revelation and the ghostly processional observed by Mrs. Turpin; however, it is not conclusively stated that the processional is the work of God and not the conscious or subconscious of Mrs. Turpin. (715)

“Teenage Wasteland” and “Soul Position”

In class the other day, we talked about the theme of running away from your problems in “Teenage Wasteland.” We talked about how running way was not a good long term solution to a problem or a good long term coping mechanism. Indeed, we all know you can’t run away forever and that your problems will eventually catch up with you. Yesterday, I listened to a song that commented on this very problem. The song is called “Run”, by “Soul Position” and it talks about the necessity and eventual consequences of learning to “run away” in the inner city. It begins by pointing out the importance of running away in a violent environment. In this instance it talks about running away from guns and shooting and everything that “threatens peaceful existence.” The artist believes that running is necessary coping mechanism in life in the inner city. Donny also runs away from the problems that interfere with his “peaceful existence.” However, later on in the song, the artist points out that in other areas of life, running away causes serious problems and threatens the peaceful state of life that everyone seeks. The artist states that running away can make ones life less fulfilling and less happy. He closes by stating that in the end, he “wishes we hadn’t learned to run.” He says that running way has not solved any of our problems. Anne Tyler makes the same point in “Teenage Wasteland.” Neither Cal nor Donny solved any of their problems by running.

“Everyday Use” – A Rant by Gary

Rejecting your roots or your present situation and then acknowledging them later on seems like a kind of trend. We always hear people telling their stories of ascent from poverty or misfortune and their attaining good fortune through their own merit. The “legend” of the self-made man is an extremely fashionable and revered past at this point in time. I don’t intend to demean the self-made man story or the value of hard work in order to achieve a goal. I believe it is something of which to be extremely proud. I believe the opportunity to better yourself through hard work and self-attained merit is the basic premise behind our country. However, I do intend to point out that it seems to be kind of trendy (at least throughout history… once upon a time, the aristocracy were proud of their not having to achieve their own wealth, and the self-made men were not considered to be truly aristocratic… then later, the self-made industrialists and capitalists became the figures held in the highest esteem) to first be embarrassed about your heritage and then become proud of it later.

I cannot really support my claim of the trendy nature of being self-made, but the thought has stuck in my head since our reading “Everyday Use.” Like we discussed in class, Dee only “accepts” her heritage when it becomes fashionable. And then, her poor roots become more of a bragging point to her than a real heritage.

Again, I can’t cite a specific reference; however, in countless movies and TV shows we see characters embarrassed about some aspect of their life (more often than not this aspect is materialistic or financial or superficial) until some supernatural being or hero or the tooth fairy or Morgan Freeman in God form makes them realize that they should be proud of themselves. This is of course the moral of the story. But in real life, not everyone has such a great emotional mentor or guardian angel. So, it becomes a trend. Once you achieve success (in whatever form that may be), your roots are no longer significant and only become a fact supporting the “hey you, I can do anything better than you can” attitude of which everyone has some (this includes every motivational speaker you have ever heard).

My attitude is indeed cynical, but it applies to Dee quite well. For example, when she was a girl she could not stand the sight of her run-down shack of a house. In fact, she enjoyed watching it burn. When she returns, grown up, she takes picture after picture of her family’s new but similar shack. Her destitute background has become a talking point. She is not even interested in her family, just her family’s living conditions and history (in the form of family heirlooms). Dee believes that her family cannot (and should not be able to) appreciate their heritage because they have not reached her considered measure of success. She thinks that they are too simple to understand their heritage. She believes that they don’t know what they have and where they came from just because they haven’t seen the top of the mountain. She is too proud of her success. She can no longer relate too her family because they consider their way of life as a way of life and she considers their way of life a talking point to highlight her own accomplishments.