Protagonist

Older Waiter

Of the three men here, we get to know the older waiter the best, and we are certainly the most sympathetic to him. While there isn't a terribly dramatic conflict present in this story, we do see the older waiter pitted against the younger waiter, whose youthful arrogance is unable to damage the almost Zen-like calm of the older man. The older waiter is in a transitional period in his life, between the days of happy contentment that the younger waiter embodies, and the absolute loneliness of the old man; the older waiter is a sort of Everyman, who represents a transition that we'll all go through someday, according to Hemingway.