What is a theme in Cat in the Rain

Risking nothing: American romantics in "Cat in the Rain."

Clarence Lindsay // Hemingway Review, The. FindArticles.com. 15 Jul, 2009. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_6754/is_n1_v17/ai_n28700458/

<…>"Cat in the Rain" is Ernest Hemingway's subtle (изысканный) exploration of this American romantic quest for identity.

The opening sentence suggests immediately that this is going to be an especially American story. "There were only two Americans stopping at the hotel" (CSS 129). The fact that they are the only Americans in the hotel hints at the peculiar cultural tensions (напряжение) that will be one of the story's principal dynamics (движущие силы). The "only" linguistically isolates them from whoever else is staying there and at the same time defines their common cultural identity. The idiomatic (фразеологический) "stopping at the hotel" is suggestive (вызывающий мысли) in a way that "staying at" would not be. The "stopping at" implies (подразумевать, заключать в себе, значить) both a past and future of movement, a nomadic (бродячий, кочевой) tourism. Also, the conspicuously (очевидно) British idiom may be a very slight indication (намёк, подсказка) of the couple's cultural acquisitiveness (жадность), as if the narrator's language is affected by proximity (схожесть) to them. These admittedly (предположительно) slight suggestions are, of course, strengthened later in the story<…>

The second sentence tells us that the couple is isolated personally as well as culturally. "They did not know any of the people they passed on the stairs on the way to and from their room" (129). Their isolation is deepened by the wearying (изнывающий от скуки) and even tedious (нудный, скучный) sameness (однообразие, монотонность) of their passing others while going "to and from their room." By not describing what the couple has seen or done, Hemingway focuses on repetitive proximities that are without intimacy.

In the description of their room's location and view that follows, Hemingway establishes the thematic significance of the rain and, with extreme delicacy, claims a moral superiority (превосходство, преимущество) for his own artistic perspective. Their room faces the sea, the public garden, and the war monument. The public garden, with "the way the palms grew" and the contrasting "bright colors of the hotels facing the gardens and the sea" (129), appeals to artists when there is good weather. But apparently there is no appeal to these artists in bad weather, either because of the inconvenience or difficulty in painting when it is raining or because the appealingly bright colors are muted. Now the square is empty and the Italians who would come "from a long way off to look up at the war monument" do not come to revere (благоговеть) ("look up" gives the feeling of reverence) the monument in the rain (129). "The motor cars were gone from the square by the war monument" (129). The rain is given such emphasis that we feel its thematic insistence. We are told the war monument "glistened in the rain." Then we are told, "It was raining. The rain dripped from the palm trees. Water stood in pools on the gravel paths." Then the narrator looks away from the scene immediately below the window toward the sea: "The sea broke in a long line in the rain and slipped back down the beach to come up and break again in a long line in the rain" (129).

Hemingway's narrator, then, attends to images and conditions that are not seen or experienced by other audiences, either the patriotic Italians or the artists. The rain opposes their fair-weather desires, implying all that is contrary to those superficial tastes.(1) We don't need to import the thematic significance of rain from other fictions like A Farewell to Arms. It's already here. Later, we will discover there is a moral dimension to going out in the rain. This opening description, which examines what other audiences are too timid to do, is the equivalent of an aesthetic manifesto and an implicit promise to go out in the rain. <…>

The next paragraph opens with "The American wife stood at the window looking out" (129). Hemingway takes special care in naming or referring to characters. The woman in this story is not given a Christian name, but different references to her constitute significantly different identities. Here, the narrator's first appellation underlines her cultural and marital status, the context through which we will see the opening signs of her dissatisfaction. Her looking away from her husband toward an outer landscape can be taken as another sign of their crisis, although we will have to depend on what follows and other instances of such looking outward to give that force here.

The description of the cat" crouched under one of the dripping green tables" attempting "to make herself so compact that she would not be dripped on" is significant for purposes of comparison later (129). All we know about the cat from this description is that it does not want to be dripped on and that it is female. The wife announces her intention to "get that kitty" (129). Her conversion of the cat to "kitty" and all the diminutive, caressing tenderness implicit in that designation is an interpretive act on her part, standing for a set of emotions that will become clear later.

The husband's first utterance deftly captures his enervated romantic identity. "`I'll do it,' her husband offered from the bed" (129). The statement calls up the chivalric system in which the man undertakes a physically onerous task, relieving the woman from such duty. But it is clear immediately and from what follows that the husband has no actual desire to serve. It is an offer rather than a statement of intent. By giving her a choice, he signals his opposite desire, saying in effect that he will do it only if she asks him to. The system of men's eager servitude to women is here invoked as a feeble fiction of selfhood, the husband acknowledging a duty that he would rather not undertake. He knows what he should be, should do, but doesn't want to be, to do. <…>He substitutes language for action. The chivalric ideal he has dressed himself in is further parodied by making his "offer" from the bed from which he never rises.

This listless, inert parody of the chivalric male serves at first as a contrast to his wife's apparent forceful readiness to undertake the cat's salvation. Perhaps she doesn't accept her husband's offer because she has already lost faith in him, but her response gives no hint yet of any dissatisfaction toward him, although signs of it will appear soon. She eagerly wants the task for herself, apparently motivated by compassion: "No, I'll get it. The poor kitty out trying to keep dry under a table" (129). The husband, either too tired to continue his chivalric role or fearing that any further offer might be accepted, continues his "reading, lying propped up with two pillows at the foot of the bed" (129). Reading, lying propped up, the American romantic imposter. The husband's next words to his wife as she leaves to get the cat are "Don't get wet" (129). His chivalric "protectiveness" is a comic sham, reduced to an effortless, laconic admonition.

Leaving the chivalric imposter behind, the American wife goes downstairs, seemingly eager to take over the role of vigorous rescuer. We see the first signs of a love triangle of sorts, a triangle that has cultural implications. The hotel owner stands up and bows to her as she passes his office. The very fact that he stands up significantly separates him from the supine, inert husband back in the room. His standing up to bow is an oxymoron of sorts, combining a physical assertion with an act of deference, each capacity meaningless without the other, providing another contrast to the shallow and lifeless imitation of service offered by the husband. This scene is a good example of Hemingway's painterly expressionism: essential character contrasts expressed in a geometry of opposed forms--the vertical movement of the European innkeeper against the horizontal inertness of the American husband.

When the wife addresses the innkeeper, she speaks in Italian, "Il piove" (129). <…>

Hemingway sometimes uses the bilingual capacity as a way of measuring the relationship to and desire for a whole range of exotic or foreign values. <…> The women's inability to speak the language of the country measures their dependence on and isolation from their male companions. As we will see here, the American wife's bilingual foray is an integral part of a larger drama of desire and selfhood. Her decision to say in Italian that it is raining is linked immediately to "She liked the hotel keeper" (129).

Interestingly, the narrator, unlike the American wife, does not call this man a "hotel-keeper." He simply refers to him as the "hotel owner" (129). While the two expressions are denotatively the same, "keeper" has a kind of romantic appeal, emphasizing a slightly elevated guardianship of something valuable ("keeper of the flame"). "Keeper" implies not mere servitude, but the service of something important. "Keeper" is a statement of an identity. The term "hotel owner" is not only a more neutral, objective term, but carries with it economic and social implications. Owners own and they are bosses as well.

The hotel owner responds to the woman using first Italian "Si, si, Signora, bruto tempo," and follows immediately with a partial English translation, "It's very bad weather" (130). His bilingual performance may simply be a courtesy (обходительность), or a way of recognizing her limited capacity. "Il piove" is, after all, a fairly basic and even banal remark. The owner's use of two languages may also mark a kind of social distinction between him and the maid, who will appear soon, and perhaps does not speak English with any ease. Whatever the case, a series of statements expanding on the wife's liking him follow his comments on the weather.

The six straightforward declarative sentences all beginning with "She liked" record her appreciation of his "dignity," "the deadly serious way he received any complaints," "the way he wanted to serve her," and finally "his old, heavy face and big hands" (129-30). Coming after her affirmation of the owner's identity, this final description can be seen as the physical embodiment of his Old World identity. She does not see him as decrepit; rather there is, to her interpretive imagination, a sense of monumental solidity to his age and a sense of physical strength and capacity in the big hands.

The narrator tells us that "liking him" the wife opens the door to look outside and contemplate her quest for the cat (130). Perhaps slightly distracted (смущённый) by all her liking for the hotel owner, or perhaps her compassionate (жалостливый) ardor (enthusiasm or passion) somewhat cooled by the rain now coming down harder, she seems tentative (неуверенный) and hesitant (нерешительный). Her thoughts now are not on the "poor kitty" out in the rain but on keeping herself from the rain. "Perhaps she could go along under the eaves (свес крыши)" (130). We contrast her initial confident energy ("No, I'll get it.") with this tentative fragility (слабость). It's significant that we don't see her actually venture (решиться; осмелиться) outside until the maid opens an umbrella for her. The maid, we are told, speaks in Italian, but her speech is given to us in English. "`You must not get wet,' she smiled, speaking Italian" (130).

When the wife and the maid walk on the gravel path to the table where the cat was, it is gone and the wife "was suddenly disappointed" (130), giving the first clear indication that her concern is not entirely for the cat but rather with possession of the cat. The maid says, "Ha perduto qualche cosa, Signora?" (130). (2) Because we have already had a glimpse of the woman's empty marriage, this question resonates with the woman's personal situation. But, as the cultural drama unfolds, a vibrant, secure European asking this question of an insecure American takes on an even larger significance, metaphorically hinting that the American escape from history has taken a significant psychic toll.

The wife, apparently speaking in English, says, "There was a cat" (130). The maid, either because she is not at ease in English or because she's startled at the object of their quest, says "A cat?" (130). She seems to be speaking in English here because the wife answers in Italian, "Si, il gatto" (130). The maid's response indicates that her question may have had more to do with the peculiarity of looking for a cat than with a difficulty in understanding. "`A cat?' the maid laughed. `A cat in the rain?'"(130).

When the maid had first opened the umbrella, she had smiled at the American tourist. That smile, whether it was professional or authentic pleasantness, contrasts with her instinctive laughter now when she discovers the woman is looking for a cat. That laugh provides a sharply distinct and critical perspective on the American woman. Also, it is not the narrator who tells us that the hotel owner has sent the maid to protect the woman. Rather, the American wife eagerly interprets the maid's presence in terms of the identity of dignified protector that she has already conferred on the hotel owner. "Of course, the hotel-keeper had sent her" (130).

Hemingway doesn't often use this Joycean technique--the collapsing (свёртывание) of the third person, restricted consciousness into the very language of the character being described--but he always uses it effectively. The "of course" makes the observation clearly an interpretive action on her part, not a fact. Her interpretation and her later near swoon over the owner is all the more revealing because she excludes the maid from her implied celebration of the owner's gallantry. To attribute the origin of the protective act to the owner is a way to confer value on herself; to exclude the actual servant standing in the rain (the maid holds the umbrella over "her" not "them") is remarkably self-centered; we might even say childish. In fact, after the maid has asked "Ha perduto qualche cosa, Signora?," the narrator, who has consistently referred to the woman as either the "American wife" or simply "wife," now calls her the "American girl" and continues to refer to her as either "American girl" or simply "girl" in the ensuing paragraph describing her return to the owner of the hotel (130).(3)<…>

After the maid laughs at the idea of the wife's seeking a cat, the American woman, speaking in English either because her emotional state has made her unable to articulate her thoughts in Italian or because she has reached the limit of her ability with the simple naming of il gatto, says, "Yes, ... Under the table ... Oh, I wanted it so much. I wanted a kitty" (130). The "poor kitty" has vanished, replaced by her desire to possess. But her desire is not especially hardy. Although she "wants," she will not risk. We might alter a Yeats' phrase here, "Had she the courage but equal to her desire," but then it would be a different story and her desire would be a different thing entirely, As soon as the maid says, "We must get back inside. You will be wet," the wife acquiesces, "I suppose so," her quest abandoned (130).

Going back into the hotel, the "American girl" once again passes the hotel owner who again bows, but this time merely "from his desk" (130), his failure to rise perhaps indicating a diminution of his own ardor and calling into question, ever so delicately, his superiority to the supine husband. The wife's feelings for the owner are this time even more intense than the mere liking she had felt before. "Something felt very small and tight inside the girl. The padrone made her feel very small and at the same time really important. She had a momentary feeling of being of supreme importance" (130). The source of the liking she feels for the hotel owner is now more clear<…>The identity she has imagined for the owner, his old world seriousness and manly dignity, creates her singularity of self. We will need to keep this in mind when she talks about her desire for the cat.

Back in the room her husband--we learn his name is George--is still reading. He puts the book down to inquire whether she got the cat. When told that it was gone says, "`Wonder where it went to,' he said, resting his eyes from reading" (130). This substitution of energyless wondering for action is a gesture of effeteness, a comic lassitude. His "resting" has ironic force. The wife's next comment mixes her desire to possess with a masking compassion: "`I wanted it so much,' she said. `I don't know why I wanted it so much. I wanted that poor kitty. It isn't any fun to be a poor kitty out in the rain'" (130). The empathetic "It isn't any fun" is another indication of her identification with the cat. Her pity is self-pity. She says these words after sitting on the bed, perhaps suggesting a desire to be comforted, but George, rested it would seem from his arduous reading, has returned to his book.

Even though the wife claims not to know why she wanted the cat, we probably have a good idea already from her feelings about the hotel owner. She then moves to the mirror where she studies her profile and the back of her head and neck before asking, "Don't you think it would be a good idea if I let my hair grow out?" (131). When George looks up, he sees the "back of her neck, clipped close like a boy's" (131). By following George's observation with his unequivocal "I like it the way it is" (131), Hemingway locates the source of the husband's desire in his wife's boyish appearance. When she says that she is "so tired of looking like a boy" (131), he does not look away from her, indicating perhaps an intensity of interest in what is at stake. She now leaves the mirror to return to the window and once again look out on the darkening scene, completing the tightly choreographed dance of this relationship. "`I want to pull my hair back tight and smooth and make a big knot at the back that I can feel,' she said. `I want to have a kitty to sit on my lap and purr when I stroke her'"(130).

The curious ambiguity of "feel" here, something that she can simply sense or something that she will be actually able to caress, may suggest that the knot is a clitoral image. Linking the feeling of the knot with the caressing of the cat strengthens the physical sense of "feel" and the cat's purring becomes her own contentment. The stroking of the cat is a stroking of her own desires, just as the old world appeal of the hotel keeper had been a stroking of her desires, a way of savoring her "supreme importance."

After George's "Yeah?" she lists a catalogue of her wants, "And 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" (131). These appetites are not especially remarkable, except that they represent the exact opposite of her present condition. The desire for her own table can be seen as her weariness of their nomadic tourism, but such weariness is not a sign of her maturation. The silver and the candles imply a desire for a traditional but well-off, superficially romantic life. Her desire to have new clothes and to brush her hair convey a sensual narcissism. In the context of this list and the story as a whole, her wish that it be spring seems not a desire for her own pregnancy but simply for freshness and an escape from the dreary weather, and all of its metaphorical implications--the risks that must be taken and the prices that must paid--that had prevented her from getting her kitty.

George, confronted with these impossibilities, secure in his own narcissistic possession of a boyish wife and happy with his reading, his own substitute for passion, tells her, "Oh, shut up and get something to read" (131). If she didn't know why she wanted the cat before, her next words make it clear that she does now. "`Anyway, I want a cat,' she said, `I want a cat. I want a cat now. If I can't have long hair or any fun, I can have a cat'"(131). Gone is any pretense of compassionate desire to protect the cat; the cat is clearly a substitute for her needs.

Just as the wife has spoken her final words, there is a knock on the door. In response to George's "Avanti" the door opens to reveal the maid. "She held a big tortoise-shell cat pressed tight against her and swung down against her body. "`Excuse me,' she said,' the padrone asked me to bring this for the Signora'" (131). Perhaps our first response here is a suspicion that this is not the same cat described earlier. If the narrator had referred to it as "the cat," there would be no doubt, but by calling it "a cat" he suggests that it must not be "the cat." This distinction possibly reveals the hotel owner's shrewd and even cynical knowledge of the woman's desires, his instinctive understanding that she does not need the weather-threatened cat, but any cat.

This substitution for a substitution also allows us to focus on the maid's relationship to this cat. Unlike the first cat described merely as a female and trying to be compact, the description here gives us a sense of the cat's considerable size. It is not only big but "slung down" and "pressed tight against," suggesting the significant physicality of holding it. The cat's considerable size implies that this particular cat is a male.(4) Certainly the maid's physical relationship with this cat is different from the relationship with a cat fantasized by the wife. The description makes us aware of the maid's body and her formidable participation in the physical act. She is the one pressing "tight" and she is the one who has "slung down" the enormous cat "against her body." There is no tender stroking of a kitty for this woman. In a story that exposes the easy dignity of the hotel owner and indicts the vacuous narcissism of the Americans, the maid seems to represent something of value. Without doubt, she inhabits the world physically, unlike the nearly motionless others. Her sexual vibrancy, implicit in her handling of the cat, contrasts favorably with the wife's narcissistic self-caressing.

The American "lovers" deserve one another. "Cat in the Rain" is a nuanced comic study of the futility of narcissistic desire. These Americans can't risk getting out of bed or going into the rain because they will endanger what they most value and want to protect, their own desires. And if they are unwilling to pay the price, then they, paradoxically and ironically, can receive no value.

Hemingway does not, however, celebrate the secure, European identity of the hotel owner at the expense of the psychological tourism of the Americans. The narrator never commits to the wife's romantic interpretation of the padrone. She values, "likes," him because of the way he makes her feel, but we see that he too risks nothing. Whether he sent the maid out with the umbrella or whether it was the maid's own decision, it's certainly she out there and not he; and it's the maid who, at his effortless request, has lugged a cat to the Americans' room. His identity is supported by history, culture, and economics. And the maid too supports his identity; she pays the price for his dignity. He may have it easier as a European, but Hemingway does not ask us to value or privilege this consequenceless identity.(5) <…>

NOTES

(1.) Those readings which associate the rain with the woman's desire for fertility, specifically for pregnancy, are not convincing (see Hagopian). David Lodge is correct when he says, "Now rain can symbolize fertility, when defined by opposition to drought. In this story, however,...it is opposed to `good weather' and symbolizes the loss of pleasure and joy..." (16). Lodge goes on to suggest that it makes more sense to argue that the wife's desire for the cat is the "result of her being pregnant" (16). To be frank, while I agree that it makes more sense, the point is still not convincing and seems, finally, irrelevant. The issue is her uncomfortable relationship with the rain and all its metaphorical implications. To Lodge's credit, he advances the pregnancy reading reluctantly, only as a way of arguing with Hagopian's interpretation.

(2.) Barton argues for the central thematic significance of the maid's question. He suggests that by rendering the question in Italian "Hemingway both disguises and emphasizes this question, which may be heard to resonate through the rest of the story" (73).

(3.) Several readers have commented on the transformation from "wife" to "girl." Barton seems to argue that the use of "girl" suggests that the narrator is representing "the fictional consciousness of the maid" (73). But then he wants to suggest that the designation refers to a "more subtle change (that)...may well be psychological" (74). The suggestion that it is the maid's consciousness is not persuasive because the narrator continues to refer to the woman as "girl" in the ensuing scene when the maid is not there. Bennett is on sounder ground in relating it to a psychological change in the girl which he later explains as either a "remembered state of virginity" (74) or "the condition of being pregnant" (74). Bennett, too, takes note of the transformation. His reading sentimentalizes the "girl," equating her girlishness with a wholesome sexuality that is thwarted by the selfish husband (33). Both readings obscure the fact that it is the narrator's evaluation of the condition of the woman's adolescent desires.

(4.) The debate over whether this is the same cat or a different cat is a distraction from the principal issue--the wife's imagined holding and the maid's actual holding of the cat. The only real evidence for the "two cat" thesis is the use of "a" instead of "the." Lodge (16-17) makes a similar argument. But even if it were the same cat, the issue is the way the maid holds it. Bennett, using both textual and extratextual evidence, also argues the "two cat" thesis (27). But then he uses it to support his notion of sexual competition between the American woman and the maid over the padrone (34). While there is evidence to suggest the maid's skepticism about the American woman, Bennett alone has-converted that into the maid's sexual desire for the padrone.

(5.) Curiously, the hotel owner has escaped careful scrutiny. White perceptively sees that Hemingway's sympathies are not with either the husband or the wife, but then adds, "If he likes anyone it is the padrone, trying to do a job well in the real world" (245). Bennett accepts completely the wife's romantic, peculiarly American idealization of the owner: "The padrone is an admirable man, and although briefly sketched, he is Hemingway's earliest role model. Each of the padrone's qualities corresponds to the qualities of the role model as he later appears in Hemingway's fiction: a man of dignity, will and commitment" (30). Like many critics, Bennett has assumed that Hemingway uncritically affirmed the very postures and values that Hemingway was critically examining. Curiously, Bennett's language and feelings toward the hotel owner are very much like the American woman's. Bennett does not see narcissism in the woman's appreciation of the dignity she confers on the owner; he ignores the careful distinction between the narrator's "owner" and the woman's "keeper." In doing so he obscures Hemingway's insight into the American crisis of identity. The hotel owner's identity is encased and protected by history. He need not risk or expend effort to maintain his dignity, and therefore it too lacks value.

Vanesa Duque Leon

Ernest Hemingway’s “A Cat in the Rain”: Symbolism.

“A Cat in the Rain” is a story that belongs to Ernest Hemingway’s collection. In a 1958 interview, Hemingway expressed his literary concern in a way that shows how his art both depends on and radically departs from conventional “realism”: “From things that have happened and from things as they exist and from all the things that you know and all those that you cannot know, you make something through your invention that is not a representation but a whole new thing truer than any thing true and alive. (The Harper American Literature, 1156)

In “A Cat in the Rain,” Hemingway demonstrates his ability to portray real women with problems and to respond to their unhappiness with real sympathy. “A Cat in the Rain” is, on the surface, a simple tale of an American couple in Italy. However, the reader soon realizes that this uncomplicated story illuminates much deeper meanings. This seemingly mundane plot becomes symbolic and purposeful under the reader’s gaze.

There were only two Americans stopping at the hotel. They did not know any of the people they passed on the stairs on their way to and from their room. Their room was on the second floor facing the sea. It also faced the public garden and war monument. There were big palms and green benches in the public garden. In the good weather there was always an artist with his easel. Artists liked the way the palms grew and the

bright colors of the hotel facing the sea. Italians came from a long way off to look up at the war monument. It was made of bronze and glistened in the rain. 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 motor cars were gone from the square by the war monument. Across the square in the doorway of the cafe a waiter stood looking out at the empty square.

With the introduction of this single paragraph, Hemingway has set out the background, that is, the setting of this story. It is a long description of the environment in good weather, which means spring or summer; then a description of the momentary situation in the rain. The photographic description of the place is absorbing and, in it, the weather plays an important role. Weather descriptions usually constitute substantial part in Hemingway’s writing and introduce the readers into the atmosphere of the story. This description creates an atmosphere that is sad, cold and unfriendly. To create this atmosphere, the author uses words such as “empty” or “the motorcars were gone”. Later on, we will see this as a kind of advanced mention to the state of the couple’s relationship. Another symbolic hint in this introduction is the “war monument”, which is mentioned three times, probably, to tell us that a conflict is to be expected.

The American wife stood at the window looking out. Outside right under their window a cat was crouched under one of the dripping green tables. The cat was trying to make herself so compact that she would not be dripped on.

"I'm going down and get that kitty," the American wife said.

"I'll do it," her husband offered from the bed.

"No, I'll get it. The poor kitty is out trying to keep dry under the table."

The husband went on reading, lying propped up with the two pillows at the foot of the bed

"Don't get wet," he said.

As we see, in order to introduce the main characters and set up the situation, Hemingway uses short sentences, dialogues and descriptions of movements and gestures, which, at first sight, seem to be pointless but are highly relevant to the plot.

The language used is very simple.

In this part of the story the main characters are presented: “The American wife” and “the husband”. Each of them seem to be isolated from each other. We see the different paradigms: she is looking out of the window and he is reading all the time:

“The husband went on reading, lying propped up with the two pillows at the foot of the bed.” “George was on the bed reading.” “George was reading again.” “He was reading again.”

It has been highlighted by those repetitions that George is reading. We see the opposition in the things they are doing. The American wife is looking out the window and sees a cat in the rain, which she wants to protect from the raindrops. When she goes out of the hotel, kept by an old Italian who seems to do everything to please her, and wants to get the cat, it is gone. After returning to the hotel, she starts a conversation with her husband, George, who keeps on reading. He seems to be annoyed and not interested at all in what she is saying: “Oh, shut up and get something to read, George said. He was reading again.” The husband’s crass words in conjunction with his inattentive attitude, characterized him as a stereotypical male who sees little benefit in taking his wife seriously. He ignores her needs. The way the husband is and the way he is acting shows the marriage coming apart. The story reflects certain strains in marriage, the most important of which is communication: “George was not listening. He was reading his book.” He is alienated while his marriage is disintegrating.

The story is, in fact, full of symbolism. As Hemingway himself stated in his Nobel Prize speech acceptance:

Things may not be immediately discernible in what a man writes, and this is sometimes he is fortunate; but eventually they are quiet clear and by these and the

degree of alchemy that he possesses he will endure or be forgotten.1

Or, in other words, “I always try to write on the principle of the iceberg, “ he told an interviewer. “There is seven-eights of it under water for every part that shows.” (The Norton Anthology of American Literature,1633)

We have already analysed the weather, but the water and the cat are two other important symbols that are interrelated. 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. It is thanks to water that the land can become fruitful; hence the prevalence throughout the story of images of water. There is water that is stagnant, like those little pools, and water in movement, like that in the sea. 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: the antipaternity attitude of George, a man who in his detached existence or in dedication to imaginative activities (“He was reading his book”), tries to take his wife out of time by arresting her fecundity.

On the other hand, the cat can be seen as symbolizing a baby. The woman wants to protect that little cat, which stands for innocence and vulnerability, like a baby. She does not know why she wants that cat so much (“I don’t know why I wanted it so much. I wanted that poor kitty.”), but we know it2: she feels the need for something to care for, to be responsible for, that makes her grow up. George, however, does not need

that, he does not want to have children, he already is grown up, which is shown by his serious behaviour and that he treats his wife like a child. In the text, she is even referred to as “”The American girl” or, simply, “the girl”. Now, we understand why they are having problems with their marriage- because they are on different levels. They cannot find a mutual base for their relationship and that makes her bored3 by him and him annoyed by her. Notwithstanding, 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 feminine), he just tells her, with disinterest, that he likes 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 some candles and a cat, and new clothes, and “it to be spring again”.

We see the immense wish to be an adult at last-as quickly as possible, and that is why she is now referred as “wife” again. The sentence that she wants it to be spring again could be understood as stating her desire for a new spring in their relationship, now that the process of her growing up has started and she might attempt to find those

basis which may help them to finally solve their problems. Although at the

2 Thus, we also notice that the information is non-restrictive.

3 The rain also symbolises the sadness that she feels and the loneliness.

5

time we left them, “It was getting dark”, “It was quite dark and still raining in the palm trees.”

In the end, she gets a cat, brought by the maid on request of the padrone. It does not seem to be the same cat, because the first one was a small cat, referred as “kitty” or “the poor kitty” and this is “a big tortoiseshell cat”; however, the important thing is that she finally gets something to take responsibility for and that symbolizes the first step in the direction of a grown-up life. However, even though she seems to be going forward and improving herself, it seems that their relationship is not going to make any progress, and in this sense, it is “the American wife” the one that can be understood to resemble a forlorn cat, a cat in the rain.

In conclusion, most of Hemingway’s stories come out of the author’s consideration of the relation between life and art and also out of guilt for his art’s effect upon his life. There is a close link between the story the narrator (omniscient narrator) is telling and Hemingway himself. There seems to be certain autobiographical undertone. But, in general, “A Cat in the Rain” is a recapitulation of Hemingway’s philosophy of life. He

believed that people were isolated, lonely and not able to establish happy relationships.

A commentary on E. Hemingway's Cat in the Rain

The multi-faceted shapes and messages that the story has, made it a typical "Hemingwayan" short story. Hemingway was a "Lost Generation" era writer; the one who directly witnessed and experienced some of the barbaric wars of the century and one who was personally injured in a war-front. Hemingway manages to catch the post-war mood of disillusionment and dissatisfaction by forging an enormous impression through the economy of his style and the "toughness" of attitude of mind. The aura encircling the present story is of such. The whole story can probably be recapped in its attempt at depicting the barrenness, sterility, incomprehensibility, and misunderstanding that rule the modern world and life which have immensely been affected by modern technology and the resultant automated, robotic life. Among all these, lack of communication screams at us. Quite ironically, a world which enjoys incomparable wealth of technological communications, the modern man is unable to establish emotional contact with the people around him; this can even engulf a married life, traditional symbol of unity and mutual understanding. The woman's strong child-wish and the man’s sexual impotence make it relatively taxing to have an emotional relation with one another. The wandering couple, both physically and psychologically, have their own pursuits in feeling from the mere thought of a child; the man seeks refuge among his books and the woman daydreams and

thinks of saving or having a cat.

The only way that the woman finds in relieving herself from this situation is through making reveries or complaining. The reveries are those of possessing a child. When the Italian girl asks her if she lost something, she replies "Yes", a cat "under the table....Oh , I wanted it so much. I wanted a kitty. "The indefinite article "a" in" I wanted a kitty "shows that she is not necessarily looking for a specific cat. It can be any cat and it actually can be a child. At her return George asks a cursory question, "Did you get the cat?". For a moment he becomes reflective and thoughtful saying "wonder where it went to." He does not have an immediate answer for this predicament and so resorts to his book starting to read, a solace to his incomprehension of this unsolvable life puzzle. On the other hand the wife has the same bizarre and incomprehensible feeling as her husband. "I don't know why I wanted it so much. I wanted that poor kitty." She avoids the thought of the cat by sitting "in front of the mirror of the dressing- table looking at herself...." as he did by studying. The woman is sick and tired of the status quo; she wants some variety and change in her life. Therefore she puts a suggestion to her husband, asking if it would be good if she let her hair grow out. George gives the much expected answer, " I like it the way it is"; meaning that he would not like her to undergo a change. His wife who is completely hopeless and frustrated starts to the window and in a whispering dramatic monologue says, "I want to pull my hair back tight and smooth and make a big knot at the back I can feel....I want to have a kitty to sit on my lap and purr when I stroke her." George's train of thought is momentarily broken encouraging him to require "Yeah?" The wife does not answer; she goes on with an "and" connecting her disrupted flow of words her wishes with "and I want to eat at a table with my own silver and I want candles. And I want it to be spring...." "Oh shut up and get something to read," comes from George who finds reading a much better solution in forgetting one's sorrows and pains and not daydreaming, another manifestation of a life lacking communication and understanding. Desperate and furious, she insists on having a cat, "Anyway, I want a cat,...I want a cat. I want a cat now. If I can't have long hair or any fun, I can have a cat. "Contrary to impotent George, there is the virile person of the manager of the hotel, "with his odd, heavy face and big hands." Clearly the woman has taken a fancy to this "deadly serious" fellow. The hotel manager is very respectful to her and tries to attend to whatever she wants, something rarely happening in her life. Upon her returning to the hotel, again she meets manager with the same masculine, sexually-appealing and dignified face. He arouses a sense of strange ambiguous feeling within her; it is feeling of insignificance and a feeling of eminence.

The woman's agitation and perplexity are calmed down by the intrusion of the Italian servantess of the hotel who came in with a "big-tortoise shell cat." Symbolically the manager fulfilled her dream and gave her what she hoped to have.

For all the suggested unhappiness, Hemingway never directly discusses it. Instead we see and analyze it for ourselves. Hemingway portrays this couple as having differences of priorities and also a difference in the amount of attention they give to one another. The spare details suggest the problem of communicating such complex issues, and the lack of direct reflection on the issue mirrors the fact that the husband and wife barely communicate together. They have lost their reverence for each other.