The interpretation of the American dream is often misleading, as Hemingway verifies in his short story A Clean, Well-Lighted Place. Overcoming the formal limits of the stories, Hemmingway substantiates three concepts: age, death and loneliness, in connection with the end of the American dream. During the 1920s, America entered a thriving era full of hope and expectation as a product of the aftermath of World War I. This story focuses on the interactions of an old man, a young waiter, and an older waiter in the setting of a clean environment. , a well-lit restaurant, and their views on life and death in the 1920s. The waiters reflect on the life of the deaf old man and reflect on their own ideas about their own life and existence. Ernest Hemingway creates a motif of deafness within the story through the lack of adjectives and specific directions to the speaker of the dialogues to show the effects of differentiation from the older man and society. Hemingway uses third-person omniscient point of view to create a deaf perception, along with a direct and surprising tone to build an intangible vision between man and time to enlighten both young and old about the fact that old age and mortality are inevitable. Through the presence of the soldier and the girl, Hemingway evokes an indication of the cultural and mental dissatisfaction of the defeated Western world after the First World War and the “lost generation”. Being published around the end of World War I, Hemingway associates this story with the trials of war. He writes while describing the surroundings of the restaurant: “A girl and a soldier were passing by on the street. The street lamp illuminated the brass number on his collar,” to postulate war through the soldier. The light of the street... in the center of the card... rewards happiness that will eventually lead to a path of loneliness and ultimately death. Works Cited Bennett, Warren. “Character, Irony, and Resolution in “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place”” American Literature 42.1 (1970): 70-79. JSTOR. Network. 02 March 2012. .Kroeger, F.B. "The Dialogue in "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place"" College English 20.5 (1959): 240-41. JSTOR. Network. 04 March 2012. .Oates, Joyce Carol. The Oxford Book of American Short Stories, ed. by Joyce Carol Oates. New York: Oxford UP, 1992. Print.Shmoop Editorial Team. “A clean, well-lit place” Shmoop.com. Shmoop University, Inc., November 11, 2008. Web. March 4, 2012. “The Lost Generation.” The Lost Generation: American Writers of the 1920s. Network. 04 March. 2012. .