When Othello marries the white Desdemona, he presses his luck, and the tide of public favor turns against him. One of his most trusted friends turns against him and convinces him that Desdemona is having an affair with another of his friends. Othello is so blinded by jealousy and rage that he cannot see how his own band of men, his own "community" has turned against him and is pitting him against the people he used to trust the most. By the end of the play he is a beaten man, an outcast and a murderer, and his speech shows it. Shakespeare writes, "I am not valiant neither, / but every puny whipster gets my sword. / but why should honor outlive honesty? / Let it go all" (Shakespeare V, ii). Othello has been at the top, and he has reached the bottom, and the community no longer looks on him with respect, but with fear and some loathing. He is a beaten man, just as the man in the cafe is old and beaten, and he kills himself at the end of the play, just as the old man tried to kill himself unsuccessfully. The two characters are both tragic because they have both outlived their usefulness in their own way, and they have been alienated from society because of their age or their actions. The old man is no longer useful even to the waiters, and Othello is no longer a trusted commander. They are classic examples of our society and how it tends to use up people until they no longer have any purpose, and then ostracize them because they are different, old, or tragic characters. Neither author seems to present a solution for the problems they see with alienation and community. Othello kills himself and there is some sadness from Lodovico when he says, "The time, the place, the torture: O, enforce it! / Myself will straight aboard: and to the state / This heavy act with heavy heart...
Likewise, there is some sadness from the old waiter when he thinks about the old man. He says, "It is not only a question of youth and confidence although those things are very beautiful. Each night I am reluctant to close up because there may be some one who needs the cafe" (Hemingway). He understands that he is an outcast too, and he feels sympathetic toward the old man when few others do. He understands that society condemns and alienates anyone who is not "young" and "confident" like the young waiter.
Now, without thinking further, he would go home to his room. He would lie in the bed and finally, with daylight, he would go to sleep. After all, he said to himself, it's probably only insomnia. Many must have it. This shows that the older waiter also needs a place to get himself through the night and experiences similar feelings as the old man. It is more though, than just
This perspective gives us insight into the human condition in that it reveals that life experience is worth something and that notion is something young people simply cannot grasp fully. The young are more confident because they have not experienced as many hardships. For example, the younger waiter is "all confidence" (96) while the older waiter is not. In fact, he can relate to the old man more than
He briefly outlines the argument: at one point in the story, the older waiter says "She cut him down," referring to the old man's (a customer) niece. The disputed but of dialogue is a later line that according to convention would be attributed to the older waiter: "I know. You said she cut him down." In the one existing copy of the manuscript, this line appears to be a
Both men's appearance are said to repel the young, yet they attempt to safeguard their 'just' reputations -- Blindy even says directly that he earned his nickname in his infamous fight: "you seen me earn it" (495). Blindy says that Willie Sawyer's castrating him, although not blinding him was 'too much' during his final fight, as if bargaining with fate. Eventually, some compassionate individual steps in to defend the reputation
As a result of his impotence, Jake sees Lady Brett's sexuality as threatening, rather than an expression of a feminist sensibility. Brett's independence is shown as futile, a kind of a symptom of the 'world upside down' of gender relations created by the war, but the implication by Jake (and by Hemingway) is that her strength is not fulfilling for her as a woman, and she is really looking
Ernest Hemingway The author Ernest Hemingway specialized in what is known as naturalistic writing. He tells the reader only the basic information about what is going on in a particular short story or novel. Much is told about the natural settings of the stories, but very little is given about the characters in his stories. Instead, the facts about the people, including their personalities and characteristics, have to be inferred by
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