What steps are important for semantic analysis of any short story, as applied to "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" by Hemingway?

This is a broad topic as semantic analysis can take many
avenues of consideration, though some are more relevant to literature. Semantic analysis
follows parsing, which describes language, we'll say text, in terms of grammatical
parts. Semantic analysis relates the parsing to meaning (semantics: the study of
meaning) as it relates to cultural/social context. Semantic analysis determines how
meaning in a defined context (i.e., social/cultural) is constructed by the
speaker/writer, we'll say writer; is interpreted by the decoder (i.e., reader/listener);
is illustrated or contradicted; etc.

Part of semantic
analysis involves recognizing cultural elements of language, like irony, figures of
speech, and idioms, and paraphrasing these to common generalized code, which
incidentally alters the writer's style: "You talk like an old man" might become, "You
sound as though you are in despair."

Some ways in which the
parsed text--its words, phrases, clauses, sentences, and paragraphs--may be related to
the text as a whole are through analysis for href="http://www.teachit.co.uk/armoore/lang/semantics.htm#9">connotation;
for inference; for pragmaticism.

• Connotation:
  cultural associations with a word that reflect emotional, experiential, or psychological
  reactions to a word.


• Inference: what is meant without
  being said; the meaning the writer wants to convey without writing
  it.


• Pragmatism in linguistics: a person's awareness of
  cultural conventions, etiquettes, mores, expectations that depend upon familiarity with
  the cultural.

A semantic analysis of any short
story would include the steps that follow and start by relating the parsing to the
cultural context of the story. In "Well-Lighted Place," you might note at the word level
that the vocabulary is simple, for example, there are more English words than Latinate
words. At the phrase level, you might note that verb phrases and noun phrase are very
simple: had left, the cafe, the electric light, the day, was, a little drunk. At the
clause level, you might note that the narrator uses many embedded clauses: an old man
who sat; the street was dusty, but at night; at night the dew settled the dust and the
old man liked to sit. At the sentence level, you might note that while the narrator uses
long sentences, though simply composed, the characters use short sentences. At the
paragraph level, you will note that the characters' culturally biased speech patterns
create many short paragraphs, with the longest near the end of the
story.

A cultural connotation applies to Hemingway's use of
"despair":

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"He was in despair."
"What
about?"
"Nothing."
"How do you know it was nothing?"
"He
has plenty of money."

The
connotation is that the old man's despair was existential--in a post-world war
world--because his money was enough to have fixed anything that was wrong. When speaking
of the soldier and girl, there is an inference that life is so given to despair that
momentary physical pleasure is of the greatest
importance:

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"The guard will pick him up," one waiter
said.
"What does it matter if he gets what he's after?"

The younger waiter's
pragmatism may be said to fit in with his culture as his life agrees with the soldier's:
"I have a wife waiting in bed for me." The older waiter's pragmatism--as well as the old
man's--may be said to be out of accord with the culture as the older waiter holds ideas
about the cafe and bodegas that do not accord with the cultural norm:

"Otro loco
mas [You are very crazy]," said the barman [to the older waiter] and turned
away.