conflict in Hemingway's "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" is essentially existential. With minimal authorial intervention, it is left to the reader to determine what struggles exist in the old man and the older waiter. The tension of the conflict resides in the dialogue of the two waiters, "two different kinds." The younger waiter lets the old man's brandy glass pour over until it "slopped over and ran down the stem." He is not ordered, and accuses the old waiter of "talking nonsense." Like the old man who attempted suicide, since his life had nothing left, the old waiter also seeks a clean, well-lighted place, a place of order and light against the "nada," the nothingness of life.