The Light Of The World

2 Pages 460 Words

In “the light of the world”, by Ernest Hemingway, the main setting is a train station where our characters are sitting on a bench. The setting gives us time place and atmosphere; in addition it sheds light on the character nick. Showing his sensitivity to beauty and how naïve he is. The setting also show’s how nick is still just learning the way’s of the world and just getting his feet wet.

The physical setting involves a time in Nick’s life where he is still young. The setting is a train station with benches where He meets 5 whores and six white men. Nick, the narrator, tells us “that it was crowded and hot from the stove and full of stale smoke. As we came in nobody was talking” (40). This is what is said before Nick and his friend walk into the room. This little bit of description adds to our understanding of how the characters begin to get a little hostile. After that the dialogue between characters does not stop, which gives us more insight into how out going nick really is. Symbolically this train station represents Nick’s life and how he will meet new people and in his life many people will pass him by.

The setting also gives us a good look into Nick’s personality. We can see he is very young by his naiveté. But we have a real respect for him, because he is very sensitive to beauty. We can tell bye the way he looks at the ugliest whore there and talk’s about how beautiful her voice is. We read that the cook turned to the fat one quickly and said “you big disgusting mountain of flesh”. But Nick says “the big whore shook and laughing. She had a real pretty voice”. We can see through these excerpts that Nick is a really very sensitive to beauty and doesn’t really dislike her because of her size. Nicks naiveté is shown in the how he doesn’t quite realize these women and how society feel’s toward them.

The setting gives us specific insight to our main character. Both physically and emoti...