Hemingway's "A Clean Well-Lighted Place": The Concept of Nada In Ernest Hemingway's short story, “A Clean Well-Lighted Place”, the concept of nada is the central and most important theme. As described by Carlos Baker, Nada is “a Something called Nothing which is so huge, terrible, overbearing, inevitable, and omnipresent that, once experienced, it can never be forgotten” (Baker 124). It is a metaphysical state that symbolizes the chaos in everyone's lives. Some people have it more than others and some deal with this idea differently that others. Either way, nada is an uncontrollable force that should never be forgotten. Steven Hoffman,