CAT IN THE RAIN

CONTEXT
Ernest Hemingway was born in a suburb of Chicago in 1899. He began his
working life as a writer for The Kansas City Star. During World War I, he was
an ambulance driver in Italy, but he had to be sent home after suffering
serious injuries. In 1921, Hemingway moved to Paris and spent time among
other artistic American expatriates such as Gertrude Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald,
and Ezra Pound. He published a book of stories and poems in Paris in 1923,
but In Our Time was his first American book.

The times during which Hemingway lived were extraordinarily important to

his writing. World War I changed the way that the world viewed itself. No
longer could Americans and Europeans claim to be innocent and simply
happy. They had seen, heard, and been ravaged by a horrible, destructive
war. Further, an entire generation of young men had experienced the horrors
of warfare. Hemingway seemed to pick up on the attitudes and troubles of
these men and translated them successfully into fiction. In a historic sense,
Hemingway expressed the feelings of his generation.

Hemingway was also one of the leaders of the modernist literary movement,
which took place after World War I. Modernist writers, including Gertrude
Stein, William Faulkner, Marianne Moore, John Dos Passos, F. Scott Fitzgerald,
e.e. cummings, Virginia Woolf, and William Carlos Williams, often
experimented with language. Hemingway did so by trimming the often
excessive language of the nineteenth century into a spare, hard-edged prose.
Modernist writers also emphasized being brutally honest about their subjects;
Hemingway never sugarcoated his material, cutting instead to the quick of
his subject. Finally, the modernist period is often argued to have a distinctly
masculine bent, which Hemingway certainly did. In 1954, Hemingway won
the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Background[edit]
In the biography Hemingway's Cats, the author writes: ["Cat in the Rain"]
was a tribute to Hadley, who was dealing with the first year of marriage, the
loneliness it entailed, and her deep desire for motherhood. According to
biographer Gioia DilibertoHemingway based the story on an incident that
happened in Rapallo in 1923. Hadley was two months pregnant when she
found a kitten that had been hiding under a table in the rain. I want a cat,
she [told Hemingway], I want a cat. I want a cat now. If I cant have hair or

any fun I can have a cat.[1]

Plot Summary[edit]
Cat in the Rain recounts the story of an American couple on vacation in
Italy. The entirety of the storys action takes place in or around the couples
hotel, which faces the sea as well as the "public garden and the war
monument".[2] Throughout the story it rains, leaving the couple trapped
within their hotel room. As the American wife watches the rain, she sees a cat
crouched under one of the dripping green tables.[2] Feeling sorry for the
cat that was trying to make herself so compact she would not be dripped
on, the American wife decides to rescue "that kitty.

On her way downstairs, the American wife encounters the innkeeper, with
whom she has a short conversation. In this encounter, Hemingway
specifically emphasizes how the wife "likes" the innkeeper, a word that is
repeated often throughout the stories of In Our Time: "The wife liked him. She
liked the deadly serious way he received any complaints. She liked his dignity.
She liked the way he wanted to serve her. She liked the way he felt about
being a hotel-keeper. She liked his old, heavy face and big hands".[2]

When the American wife finally arrives outside that cat is gone, and, slightly
crestfallen, she returns to the room alone. The American wife then has a
(rather one-sided) conversation with her husband about the things she wants
with her life, particularly how she wants to settle down (as opposed to the
transient vacation life the couple has in the story): I want to eat at a table
with my own silver and I want candles. And I want it to be spring and I want
to brush my hair out in front of a mirror and I want a kitty and I want some
new clothes.[2] However, her husband, George, continues to read his books,
acting dismissively of what his wife wants. The story ends when the maid
arrives with a big tortoise-shell cat pressed tight against her and swung
down against her body,[2] which she gives to the American wife. This ending
is both abrupt and ambiguous, and hinges on the mystery of the tortoiseshell cat's identity. We do not know whether it is the "kitty" the wife spotted
outside and so do not know whether she will be pleased to get it."[6]

A New York Times book reviewer comments on the plot of the very short
story, writing that is absolutely all there is, yet a lifetime of discontent, of
looking outside for some unknown fulfillment is compressed into the offhand
recital.[7]

Analysis[edit]
The American Wife[edit]
The American wife is the protagonist of the story. Despite being the main
character, the "American wife" remains unnamed during the course of the
story. Throughout the story, the American wife becomes increasingly childlike.
While at the beginning of the story, she is referred to as the American wife,
she becomes the girl as the story progresses: As the American girl passed
the officeSomething felt very small and tight inside the girl.[2] The wifes
immaturity is also shown in the dialogue of the story. Several times she refers
to the "kitty" ("I'm going down and get that kitty"/ "I want to have a kitty to
sit on my lap")[2] instead of the more mature "cat" that would be expected
from a grown woman.

Another important aspect of the American wife is her loneliness. Her husband
treats her dismissively, although she desperately desires to be loved. She
desires a stable home life, instead of a life of travel, where she can enjoy the
basic luxuries of a husband and potential family, as well as a kitty to sit on
[her] lap and a table with [her] own silver andcandles.[2] Some scholars
have even suggested that the American wife is pregnant in the story, and if
she is not, scholars have argued that she at least desires to be pregnant.

George (the Husband)[edit]

Throughout the story, George, the protagonists husband, is painfully
unaware of his wifes needs. Although at the beginning of the story he offers
to retrieve the cat, Ill do it, her husband offered from the bed,[2] through
the remainder of the story he acts contemptuously towards his wife. When
the American wife tells George what she wishes for her life, he responds in an
irritated way, telling her to go "'shut up and get something to read.'"[2]
Georges actions in the story are contrasted to those of the innkeeper, who
sends a cat to the American wife at the end of the story when she cannot find
the cat in the rain. The American wife even comments that, She like[s] the
way [the innkeeper] wanted to serve her.[2]

Selfishness[edit]
Both the American wife and George display tremendous selfishness
throughout the course of the story. George continues to read and ignore his
wife, while the American wife complains about all the things she does not

have and wishes she did. The selfishness of these two characters is
contrasted to the Italians came from a long way off to look up at the war
monument.[2] While the two Americans can only think about themselves,
while the Italians, who have experienced the war, have a better perspective
and understanding of life, illustrated through their trips to see the monument
to those who have died.
Summary
The short story "Cat in the Rain" was written by Ernest Hemingway in the
1920s. It is about an American couple that spends their holidays in an Italian
hotel. It is a rainy day and the American woman sees a cat in the rain, which
she wants to protect from the raindrops. When she goes out of the hotel,
which is kept by an old Italian who really seems to do everything to please
that woman, and wants to get the cat, it is gone. After returning to the hotel
room, she starts a conversation with her husband George, who is reading all
the time, telling him how much she wants to have a cat and other things, for
instance her own silver to eat with. Her husband seems to be annoyed by
that and not interested at all. At the end of the story there is a knock on the
door and the maid stands there holding a cat for the American woman in her
hands.
Peculiarities of the introduction
The first thing that caught my eyes was the long description at the beginning.
First there is a description of the environment in good weather, which means
spring or summer, then a description of the momentary situation in the rain.
This description creates an atmosphere that is sad, cold and unfriendly. To
create this atmosphere Hemingway uses words such as "empty" or "the
motorcars were gone". Later on, by looking at the relationship of the two
Americans, you can see that this description was a foreshadowing of the
state of the couples relationship: First it was nice, the spring-time of their
love, and now there is only rain, their relationship got cold and unfriendly.
Another symbolic hint in this introduction is the war monument, which is
mentioned three times. This maybe is done to tell us that a conflict is to be
expected.

From girl to wife

The next thing I wondered about was the spontaneous reaction of the woman
after she saw that cat. Usually only children want to protect cats or dogs from
the rain, because a grown-up knows that rain does not do any harm to
animals living on the street. From that point on you can find an interpretation
which is quite complex and not that easy to explain: On the one hand the

woman wants to protect that little cat, which now stands for something
innocent and vulnerable, like a baby. So she wants to protect that vulnerable
thing, which is more the behaviour of an adult. But on the other hand she
acts like a little child by having this wish for a cat. Another hint for that is that
the woman is referred to as "girl" in the following paragraph, not as "wife" like
before.
The sequence in which we get to know that she likes the hotelkeeper a lot is
next. She likes the way he wants to serve her. Why? Because it gives her the
feeling to be grown up, to be treated like a lady. But the other reasons for
fancying him originate from a more childish thinking, like the fact that she
likes him because of his big hands. To underline this childish behaviour, all
sentences in this part begin with "She liked..", which is the typical way of a
child to want something: "I like cats, I like chocolate, I like bubble-gum "and
so on. When she talks about the cat in this situation, she does not say "cat"
but "kitty", which is usually a childish expression as well.

The next sentence that seems to be important to me is:" The padrone made
her feel very small and at the same time very important. She had a
momentary feeling of being of great importance." At this point we can see
again the two parts of her personality. The child in her feels very timid
because of the presence of this tall, old, serious man, the woman in her feels
flattered by the way he cares for her. She seems to be like a girl of about
fourteen, still being a child and now slowly noticing the woman inside her.

Marriage problems
When she comes back to the hotel room, her husband is still reading. She
tells him that she does not know why she wanted that cat so much, but we
know it: She feels the need for something to care for, to be responsible for,
that makes her grow up, for example having a baby. George does not need all
that anymore, because he already is grown up, which is shown by his serious
behaviour and that he treats his wife like a child. And now we understand
why why they are having problems with their marriage - because they are on
different levels: He already is a man, she is still a girl. They cannot find a
mutual base for their relationship and that makes her bored by him and him
annoyed by her.
But George does not understand the problem of his wife and therefore of
their relationship, because when she talks about letting her hair grow to
make her become more female, he just tells her with disinterest that he likes
it the way it is.

But her wish for longer hair is only the beginning. She tells him that she
wants her own silver to eat with and candles and that cat, standing again for
something to be responsible for and new clothes. I am sure that her new
clothes would be very female, because all these things stand for the world of
a grown-ups. So she utters, without really recognizing it herself, the immense
wish to be an adult at last - as quickly as possible. And that is why she is now
referred to as "wife" again.

The sentence that she wants it to be spring again stands for her huge wish
for a new spring in her relationship, now that the process of her growing up
has started and she might attempt to find a way to be level with her
husband, which maybe will help them to finally find a mutual basis. In the end
she gets a cat, brought by the maid on request of the padrone. It is not
important if it is the same cat she saw on the street or not, the only thing that
matters is that she finally gets something to take responsibility for and that
symbolizes the first step in the direction of a grown-up life.

Conclusion
Altogether I would say that the theme of the story are the problems that a
relationship has, when one partner becomes dominant or repressive and the
other is trying to change and improve the situation. If they are aware of their
problems they might be able to save their marriage, but if they do not
recognize that their relationship will become more and more like the
depressive weather in this short story, until there will be winter when their
love will die.
SYMBOLISM
Ernest Hemingways Cat in the Rain, a tale of an American couple,
illuminates much deeper meanings to the readers. In Cat in the Rain, he
uses imagery and his subtle skill to convey to the readers the very truth of
family relationship. While reading the story, the readers come to understand
the symbols used in the text.

This short story contains a great number of symbols. In a symbolic reading,

the opening paragraph describes the crisis that exists in the marriage of the
couple. We see the water from the very beginning: It was raining. The rain
dripped from the palm trees. Water stood in pools on the gravel paths. The

sea broke in a long line in the rain. The water is a symbol of fertility. The land
can become fruitful by water. However, she does not become wet, which
means that nothing can grow from her sterile womb. The water never touches
her: Do not get wet. Thus, Hemingway is portraying an attitude towards
marriage and the conflict in the family life.

On the other hand, the cat can be seen as the symbol of a baby. The woman
wants to protect that little cat, which stands for innocence like a baby. She
does not know why she wants that cat so much. She feels the need of
motherhood. George, however, does not need that. He does not want to
have children. He treats his wife like a child. In the text, she is even referred
to as The American girl or, simply, the girl. George does not understand
the problem of his wife and therefore of their relationship. When she talks
about letting her hair grow (to make her become more feminine), he just tells
her, with disinterest, that he likes the way it is. He does not pay heed to this.
The sentence that she wants it to be spring again could be understood as
stating her desire for a new spring in their relationship. But the darkness
appears.

At the end of the story, she gets a cat, brought by the maid on request of the
padrone. It is not the first cat. It is a big tortoise-shell cat. However, the
important thing is that she finally gets something to take responsibility for.

Most of Hemingways stories come out of the authors consideration of the

relation between life and art and also out of guilt. Cat in the Rain is the
presentation of Hemingways philosophy of life. He believed that people were
isolated, lonely and not able to establish happy relationships. His use of
symbols in the story is significant and these symbols give us the chance to
see things with different outlook.