Cafés Symbol in A Moveable Feast

Cafés are a hugely important part of the book, and much of the action takes place within them. Hemingway explains that there are many different types of cafés in Paris, some pleasant and some repellent, some “private” and some social. Hemingway frequents different cafés based on his mood, sometimes going to them in order to work and sometimes to socialize over food and drinks. While working, he orders a café crème or sometimes an alcoholic drink and he watches the people around him. Various people inspire Hemingway as he writes, including the beautiful woman he sees in the first chapter whom he feels “belongs” to him and even the young man who, despite harassing Hemingway, builds Hemingway’s momentum as he writes. The café culture in Paris highlights the way in which art, work, pleasure, socializing, and critique are all mixed together, creating a vibrant culture that straddles the public and private spheres. Although not everything that takes place in cafés is a positive memory, Hemingway’s depiction of the café culture of Paris at the time is deeply infused with nostalgia.

Cafés Quotes in A Moveable Feast

The A Moveable Feast quotes below all refer to the symbol of Cafés. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:

No one emptied the Café des Amateurs though, and its yellowed poster stating the terms and penalties of the law against public drunkenness was as flyblown and disregarded as its clients were constant and ill-smelling.
All of the sadness of the city came suddenly with the first cold rains of winter, and there were no more tops to the high white houses as you walked but only the wet blackness of the street.

Related Characters: Ernest Hemingway (speaker)

Related Symbols: Alcohol, Cafés

Page Number and Citation: 16

Explanation and Analysis:

You got very hungry when you did not eat enough in Paris because all the bakery shops had such good things in the windows and people ate outside at tables on the sidewalk so that you saw and smelled the food. Then you were skipping meals at a time when you had given up journalism and were writing nothing that anyone in America would buy, explaining at home that you were lunching out with someone, the best place to do it was the Luxembourg gardens where you saw and smelled nothing to eat all the way from the place de l'Observatoire to the rue de Vaugirard. There you could always go into the Luxembourg museum and all the paintings were heightened and clearer and more beautiful if you were belly-empty, hollow-hungry. I learned to understand Cezanne much better and to see truly how he made landscapes when I was hungry. I used to wonder if he were hungry too when he painted; but I thought it was possibly only that he had forgotten to eat. It was one of those unsound but illuminating thoughts you have when you have been sleepless or hungry. Later I thought Cezanne was probably hungry in a different way.

Related Characters: Ernest Hemingway (speaker)

Related Symbols: Cafés

Page Number and Citation: 65

Explanation and Analysis:

Everyone had their private cafés there where they never invited anyone and would go to work, or to read or to receive their mail. They had other cafés where they would meet their mistresses and almost everyone had another café, a neutral café, where they might invite you to meet their mistress and there were regular, convenient, cheap dining places where everyone might eat on neutral ground.

Related Characters: Ernest Hemingway (speaker)

Related Symbols: Cafés

Page Number and Citation: 203-204

Explanation and Analysis:

Cafés Symbol Timeline in A Moveable Feast

The timeline below shows where the symbol Cafés appears in A Moveable Feast. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.

...fall, with cold rain and wind pulling the leaves from the trees. He describes the Café des Amateurs, which is a “sad, evilly run café” filled with people who are drunk... (full context)

At the café, Hemingway is writing about Michigan, and he reflects that it is useful that the weather... (full context)

...because I did not know Paris well enough.” Hemingway finishes the oysters and leaves the café; back home, his wife Hadley says that his plans sound “wonderful.” She says she would... (full context)

When Hadley and Hemingway return to Paris it is “clear and cold and lovely.” Cafés are open with heated terraces, the streets are beautiful, and the fire in Hemingway’s apartment... (full context)

...agree to walk down to the River Seine together, have a drink at a new café, come home and eat, read their books, and make love. Hadley adds “and we’ll never... (full context)

...have enough money to eat, and during this time he gets exceptionally hungry because the cafes and bakeries of Paris are filled with food that looks and smells delicious. Sometimes Hemingway... (full context)

...novel will finally guarantee that he and Hadley can “eat regularly.” Hemingway goes to a café, orders a café crème, and writes a story about “coming back from the war” that... (full context)

Hemingway lives near a café called the Closerie des Lilas, which is one of the nicest cafés in Paris. In... (full context)

...Ford goes, a friend of Hemingway’s arrives and Hemingway claims that another man in the café is Belloc. However, the friend replies that it is not Belloc, but rather Alestair Crowley,... (full context)

...Hemingway keeps walking down the street, feeling happy. He recognizes several people he knows through café windows; these people tend to frequent the big cafés where no one will notice them.... (full context)

...three of them drink, and Pascin scolds one of the girls for “modeling” in the café. He flirts with the girls, exchanging dirty talk. Hemingway says he has to leave, and... (full context)

...back to America, but he replies that he is doing well in Paris, working in cafés and going to the races. One girl looks at Hemingway’s clothes—his “café outfit”—and says that... (full context)

...young family leaves Paris during the cold winters. Before Bumby Hemingway would happily work in cafés during the winter, but he feels it is not right to bring a baby to... (full context)

Scott and Hemingway talk about the café they are in and about Scott’s recent writing. Scott wants Hemingway to read The Great... (full context)

...has not provided details of where he is staying in Lyon. Hemingway goes to a café and has a drink with a professional fire-eater, who then takes him to a cheap... (full context)

Hemingway describes the atmosphere of writing in a café—the notebooks and pencils, marble tables, and smell of a café crème. He has a rabbit’s... (full context)

...replies, “too bad.” Hemingway asks the young man to remember not to come to the café when he is working, and the young man replies that he won’t. Hemingway thanks him.... (full context)

...hit the young man, but admits that he wouldn’t have hit him “at my home café.” He considers that it might be his own fault if other people interrupt him while... (full context)

...to “look after” Larry while he is in Paris. Hemingway and Larry meet at the Café Napolitain; Hemingway notes that Larry is “very nice” and that he has enormously long hands,... (full context)

Hemingway spends a lot of time in cafés with Bumby while he works. Bumby comes to Austria, but when Hemingway and Hadley go... (full context)

After Bumby sees Scott drunk at the Place St.-Michel café, he asks Hemingway: “Monsieur Fitzgerald is sick Papa?” Hemingway explains that Scott drinks too much,... (full context)

Cafés Symbol Analysis

Cafés Quotes in A Moveable Feast

Cafés Symbol Timeline in A Moveable Feast