"If a person is older than you by a day, then that person is wiser than you by a year- (an old Arabic saying). At different ages people think and conceive things differently. These things could be life in general, money, love, relationships or trust. A person could look young, but from the way that person acts one would think that he/she was a mature individual, and older in age. People of different age groups think differently and that can be observed through their dialogue. In his short story "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place-, Ernest Hemingway enables us to distinguish, through the use of tone in dialogue, the age difference between the positive and younger inquisitive waiter, and the older cynical one that thinks he is omniscient.
The age difference is perceived during the first conversation between the two waiters, before the narrator makes an age distinction. In the initial conversation, there is a clear difference between the alternating lines. One person seems to interested and doing all the questioning, while the other is the information provider, replying by using one word answers. This can be seen when one of the waiters asks "What about?- and the second waiter replies "Nothing-, (Line 12). Young people are usually more inquisitive and curious than older people since they do not have as much knowledge and experience in the world. Therefore it would appear that the younger person is the one asking all the questions while the older person is doing all the answering. Similarly, a conversation between a child and one of his parents would have a similar inquisitive dialogue, with the child doing all the questioning. .
In addition the difference in tone helps us tell apart the waiters. The younger waiter has an energetic and positive tone while the older waiter has a less energetic and a cynical one. Younger people generally have a more positive outlook on life than older people.
