Analysis on Hemingway’s “Cat in the Rain”

by: Muhammad Haris bin Ahmad Shariff 1818843

Hemingway's "Cat in the Rain" has a symbolic title that points to the theme of unsatisfied

emotional desire.

Identify and explain five stylistic features that reinforces this theme in the story.

What can you say about Hemingway's style of writing in this story?

Use a size 12 Times New Roman Font, double-spacing, 5-8 pages.

 From the text, Cat in the Rain by Hemingway above, the theme that is potentially

important is unsatisfied emotional desire. In the text, there are various kinds of proofs that

highlights the theme itself. It is seen that Hemingway’s writing style is using simple words or

vocabulary and simple sentence structure in which consist of subject, verb and object. However,

Hemingway is precise in describing the details of the environment and situation. His writing is

straightforward and compact at the same time, the way he chooses the words and phrases in

describing the surrounding makes his writing interesting and easier to understand. The frequent

use of adjectives in describing the nouns and the precision of the description is making the text

emotionally close to the readers thus making it easy for the readers to understand. In the phrase

“Water stood in pools on the gravel paths”, Hemingway uses personification in which he uses the

verb “stood” in which it should be used for living objects towards non-living object. The lexical

choice of verb in this phrase emphasized the water roles in the story, which later in terms of

cohesion can be related to the sea and the rain. The rain in the story is the main obstacle that

causes further conflicts. The first unsatisfied emotional desire can be found when the rain has

become the cause of the supposedly enjoyable beautiful view of the sea cannot be enjoyed by the

couple. It is well described by Hemingway that the room that is booked by the American couple

comes with a very beautiful scenery however it cannot be enjoyed due to the rain. Judging from

the perspective of deviation in terms of context and cohesion, the context here shows the

opposite emotion of the description of the scenery and the emotion of the couple itself. In terms

of cohesion, water, sea and the rain are all relatable. However, the scenery of the sea is

something that the couple looking forward to and it portrays positive emotion but the rain that

prevented the scenery to be enjoyed becomes something that portrays negative emotion and

unsatisfaction.
 Analyzing text stylistically requires the involvement of the elements of foregrounding

which are divided into two parts which are deviation and parallelism. In addition, the analysis

should involve multiple stylistic features which includes lexical, grammatical, figures of speech,

context and cohesions and others. Foregrounding mainly functioned in highlighting important

parts of the text. So, firstly deviation can be defined as irregularity in which any forms of

features included by a writer in their text can be counted as deviation. First and foremost, the title

of the text itself can be interpreted as deviation in which “Cat in the Rain” can be seen as

something odd and portrays a whole different perspective and idea in the relation with the story

that is about an American couple trying to fit in another country. Highlighting the theme of

unsatisfied emotional desire, it seems like throughout the whole text, the couple faces multiple

conflicts that emphasizes the theme.

The way Hemingway uses female pronouns as a grammatical feature in his writing for

the cat shows the deviation that represent the way the cat and female are relatable. The cat firstly

shows its unsatisfied emotional desire in seeking security from the rain in the phrase “The cat

was trying to make herself so compact that she would not be dripped on”. In terms of stylistic

features of context and cohesion this part can be compared to woman’s natural characteristics to

find a protection going through any harms in life from someone that can be trusted like a figure

of husband. Another example of deviation in terms of context and cohesion is on the way the

wife suddenly complimented the housekeeper indicating as if she is attracted to him. This can be

interpreted as unsatisfied with her own husband or she purposely does that to enhance jealousy

towards her husband. In this context, as someone’s wife it can either be she is complimenting as

a friendly remark or she is indeed attracted to the housekeeper. Other than that, the deviation in

terms of figures of speech under tropes category can be highlighted in the way the irony of the
cat given to the lady in the end is called “big-tortoise shell cat” meanwhile the cat in the

beginning called kitty. This further explain the way the lady’s emotional desire is not fulfilled

and emphasize the unsatisfaction because she does not get the cat that she really wanted in the

beginning. The unsatisfied emotional desire can also be found on the usage of foreign language

by the wife showing the sense of belonging in which she tries to blend it with the locals.

Moving on to the foregrounding involving parallelism, which indicates the unexpected

regularity which further explained in portraying the same or opposite meaning of something.

Repetition in terms of alliteration is found in the line of Italian language which is “Si si Signora”.

The sound “si” is being repeated. The phrase can be translated as “Yes Madam” which is a

respectful manner towards a lady with higher status. It is to stress and emphasize the status of a

maid and a rich lady. The repetition plays function of controlling the pace of the story. It is also

known as phonological parallelism in the foregrounding. Depending on the sound that is being

repeated, alliteration can either be the phrase that increase or decrease the frequency of reader’s

reading. Alliteration is also found later in the text in the line “Wonder where it went to”. From

this line, it emphasizes the high level of curiosity and unsatisfaction of not knowing the

whereabouts of the cat felt by the husband, George as in the text his wife could not find the cat

that she wanted so much as it has gone missing.

In addition, some parts that highly emphasize unsatisfied emotional desire can be found

first in line 19 until 24 where the American couple argued on which one of them should go

downstair to get the cat in the rain. The wife firstly volunteered herself to go down and save the

kitty then the husband counter offers her by saying that he will be the one to do it but the wife is

determined with her decision and want to fulfill her emotional desire instead. Later the

unsatisfied emotional desire continues on the next line till the very last part of the text. It started
when the wife could not find the cat that she wanted then she started to question the whereabouts

of the cats. Then, the elements of parallelism and repetition are found in which she mentioned “I

wanted the cat” for few times and soon she says “I want a cat, I want a cat now, if I can’t have a

long hair or any fun, I can have a cat”. The repetition of the word “want” and “cat” emphasize on

how desperate she is to have the cat but cannot do so.

Next, the repetition of the word “tired” and “want” in the near ending parts, which is

from line 74 until line 92 are some of the obvious examples indicating unsatisfaction. She

emphasizes her insecurities and her repressed desires towards her husband. This is lexically

categorized under verb category that highlights the emotion of the character. On line 93, the

husband, George is using a sentence that is grammatically a command sentence which sounds

like “Oh, shut up and get something to read.” This choice of sentence indicates the emotion of

George in which he is not satisfied with the way his wife is complaining about everything.

Next, concluding the style of Hemingway’s writing, in the text he seems to repeat the

word “war” and the phrase “war monument” indicating that he is familiar war scene itself. The

repetition made it clear on his stance towards the war. The parallelism of the “war” emphasized

the emotion of Hemingway towards the war as he is pure American writer that once served in the

WW1. In the text, Hemingway also mentioned Italian figures, “Italians came from a long way off

to look up at the war monument” showing that there is something going on between America and

Italy. Historically, Italy in World War 2 has decided to go against the America. This can also be

seen as unsatisfied emotion of Hemingway towards the Italian. He uses the Italian to play roles

of a maid to compare the status of American and Italian. He purposely uses the Italian language

in the text as a strong representation of Italy identity. In one line in the story which is “when she
talked English, the maid’s face tightened.” it is again to be seen that there is a tense relation

between the two countries which is America and Italy, emphasized in the text.

Other than that, Hemingway uses concrete nouns instead of abstract nouns most of the

times. Concrete noun consists of things that can be seen, feel and taste through senses meanwhile

abstract noun consist of imagery and things that is impossible to be seen, feel and taste through

senses. Examples of concrete nouns from text are cat, rain, trees and others. The purpose behind

the usage of concrete nouns can be associated with clear message and straightforward delivery.

Readers can feel and sense the message delivered by the writer as well as understand the emotion

of the writer itself through the story.

Apart from that, it is notable the way Hemingway addresses women and men characters

in the text is quite misogynistic in some kind of way. It is because he manages to give name to

the male character which is George, while for the females, he only uses the pronoun to address

them. However, the way he addresses this can also be interpreted in other ways. Using general

pronoun is a way for the writer to allow more readers to relate. The female characteristics shown

on the text are the characteristics of most of the female in reality. Thus, this style of writing

makes the readers feel close towards the story and the writer psychologically.