Loneliness, it’s something everyone experiences in their lifetime. Really it depends on how you experience it. So how can people tell if you are or not? How about if they tried suicide? Drugs? Isolation? Maybe if that person seems to drink all the time. One example is the old man in the story “A Clean Well Lighted Place” by Ernest Hemingway. Analyzing characters is a way to help better understand this story.
Being in a café till three in the morning drinking beer is some way to comfort yourself or forget about the world. That’s what the old man did in “A clean Well Lighted Space”. The old man is one of the main characters, who experiences loneliness. A reason why he is feeling lonely is because his wife had died and only lives with his niece. One part in the story states that ‘the old man looks from his glass across the square, then over to the waiters’. Hemingway wrote this to show how the old man seems separated from the world, like he is isolated. Maybe to show how he is stuck in the past while everything around him is moving in a fast forward. Lost, calm, lonely, walks with dignity, clean, and doesn’t spill shows part of the old man’s personality. Even though he drinks Brandy at a café till three in the morning, he still walks and behaves with a good amount of pride and dignity.
Being a writer can get quite stressful, especially if it takes around a month to finish a paragraph or two for a story. Hemingway is a very precise writer, his stories must be exact. When I read his stories, they weren’t appealing, too boring, and needs more imagination. That is just my opinion. Somehow in a way Hemingway predicted his life with this story. Hemingway was also slightly lonely and very depressed and buried in stress. He got depressed and married many times, having cheated on his wife over and over again. An explanation on how he predicted his life with this story is how he made the old man tried to commit suicide. Ernest Hemingway has a line of relatives who had committed suicide. He then followed in their footsteps without even knowing it.
Feeling alone in the world is what we all will or have felt. So talk to someone about it to help yourself. The old man in the story “A Clean Well Lighted Place” felt separated from the world, maybe he was. Just remember that you are never alone.
The 13th
Friday the 13th,
So much superstition,
It's just bad luck.
I'd watch who you're with,
He's always watching,
Awaiting his 13th victim.
Reporters talking about him,
He gloats in his evil fame,
Knowing they won't find him.
He stalks, like a black cat,
He is hidden in the shadows,
Stalking his victim.
Knife in hand, rope slung over,
What better way, than torture,
Laughing to himself.
No clues left behind,
He takes pride in his work,
To him, it's an art, to us it's horrible.
Each cut, stab, and slice,
Knowing where and so precise,
Watching the fear in their eyes.
Such terror, makes him crave more,
Screaming, crying, and then silence,
He can already hear it.
He grins his wicked grin,
A black cat crosses a lady's path,
Watching her reaction, he chooses his victim.
Awaiting the darkness of night,
Where the full moon is the only light,
He quietly stalks his prey
She walks by an alley,
Another black cat passes her,
She freezes, he takes his chance.
Coming up behind her,
Covering her mouth with his hand,
Dragging her to his car, his 13th victim.
Gagging and bounding her,
He laughs at her fear,
Planning her death in his head
He takes her home,
Ties her to his bed,
Leaves her there, waiting in fear.
An hour later, he comes back,
With a knife, sharp to the point,
She squirms and screams.
Laughing with pure enjoyment,
Stabs her 13 times,
Blood stains his bed.
Wrapping her up, careful to hide himself,
Throws her in the trunk,
Takes her to the dump site.
Friday the 13th,
At 11:59:59pm
His 13th victim dead,
His laughter haunts the people.
