Cat in the rain

The short story is told in a simple time sequence.A couple of American stayed in an

Italian hotel in a rainy day. The wife saw a poor cat crouching under a table from the

rain outside. She wanted to bring it in. However when she came to the yard only

found the cat was gone. After returning to the room a maid sent her another cat.

The description about the environment is pretty detailed.It was a rainy day when

people wouldn’t want to go out unless necessary.Like today in Madrid,I would rather

stay at home to enjoy reading like George,the husband and finish the

assignment.However after the wife saw the cat outside,she was really eager to go

downstairs to save the poor kitty.So what I sense here is the external conditions were

restricting the wife who doesn’t even have a name from going out to seek freedom

and more.

There are six characters mentioned in the story.The husband never left the bed and

said:‘I’ll get it”, “Don’t get wet” or “shut up and get something to read’.These short

sentences all sound like orders and show his indifference to his wife and the poor

cat.The warm hotel-keeper was always behind the desk and offered help in time to

protect the wife.What aroused inside the woman was not only affection but the sense

of importance and confidence.And there was a man in a rubber cape simply passing

by.A bed,a desk, a rubber cape,the male characters all posses something important on

the same spot as the wife.It is not hard to draw the conclusion,Hemingway was trying
to show the superiority of man.

The maid as the other female character appeared twice.The first time she was asked to

bring the wife an umbrella and a big tortoiseshell cat for the second time.No matter

being ordered or taken care of,the female characters were always passively accepting

and bearing.The only thing they could do was to save the cat,which symbolized

freedom and independence.She didn’t know why but she just wanted the cat.And

unconsciously the harder it was to find the cat,the more she desired it.In the end, the

maid brought her a tortoiseshell cat.I google it for more information and found two

‘key words’ of that breed of cats :almost exclusively female and non-purebred

domestic.So obviously the cat in the rain as a symbol in the text represents a female

with freedom but what she was a female domestic cat which represents traditional

women--being tamed and protected at home.From this point of view,the cat is a

perfect symbol that can’t be easily substituted. Would her unconscious self-awareness

cool down and go back to embrace the cat?We do not have a clear ending but she

might receive it as a comfort after all she was not clear what she was pursuing.