"A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" is a short story by American author Ernest Hemingway, first published in 1926. It was later included in his 1933 collection, Winner Take Nothing. The waiters are chatting about the old man who tried to commit suicide last week. The young waiter has no idea why he wanted to kill himself: "He was in despair He has plenty of money". The subject and a level of confusion in the phrasing of dialogue within the story has been a contentious issue, in regard to which waiter knows about the old man trying to kill himself, with two revisions existing, as outlined in the... scholary article by Warren Bennett in "The characterization and the dialogue problem in Hemingway's “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place". Afterwards in the café, both waiters are talking about the reasons that some old people commit suicide. From this conversation, the reader can gather that the old man who was there last week hanged himself with a rope, and that it was his niece that cut him down. The young waiter again states that the old man who is there tonight should go home because he, the young waiter, wants to go home to his wife.
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