"A Clean Well-lighted Place" is a curious short story.  While I don´t consider it to be representative of Hemingway's major themes or entirely representative of  his distinctive style, it is nonetheless compelling: an incisive and stylish observation of the male ethos, aging and loneliness.

Perhaps the most striking aspect of this particular story is the manner in which Hemingway does away with some of the more cumbersome (albeit helpful) apparatus of narrative. 

A quick glance shows that the dialogue is almost entirely without those informational tags that we tend to take for granted, and which casually give so much information.

We are used to "he said," and "she said," to the extent that when they are gone we are sometimes left somewhat in the dark.  The reader moves from the familiar conventions,

   "Who is it?" Harry said irritably.

   "Me," Jean grunted.

   "Oh!" Harry's disappointment was almost palpable.

To the terseness and sparsity of the Modern:

   "Who is it?"

   "Me."

   "Oh!"

Notice that the exchange becomes alienated and ambivalent in the latter case.  There is little connection of any kind between the participants and what there is is at best  implied and must be interpreted by the reader.

That is part of the Modern text, drawing the reader insidiously into the act of interpreting narrative; forbidding passivity at all costs.  Click here for a discussion about the characters and what they represent