In his frictional story, “Cat in the Rain,” Ernest Hemingway sets the scene for his fiction in a hotel room in Italy on a rainy day. On the first reading of this short story it can be easily interpreted as a wife nagging her husband, who is lying in bed preoccupied reading a book. The young married American’s being in a foreign country on business or pleasure, (Hemingway does not say) one would expect that the expression of love would be more prominent even more so on a rainy day, however, this is not evident in Hemingway’s story. What Hemingway does illustrate is how an “American wife” feels starved for attention and love in her failing marriage. 

He uses a cat as a symbol of compassion an affection to express the woman’s need for these emotions. Her frustration with her husband, whom does not readily allow her to physically share these feelings with him, also becomes very evident in the story. Hemingway uses the heavy rains as a tool to confine the American couple to their room, thereby, allowing him to display the interaction between the couple and further demonstrate their deteriorating marriage.

In the story, the “American girl” sees the cat through her window “crouched under one of the dripping green tables,” and immediately feels the need to rescue it. Here is where Hemingway begins to use symbols to express the girl’s determination to save her faltering marriage. He shows the girl’s eagerness to go through the heavy rains to save the cat. The cat represents what she wants in her marriage, affection and compassion, and the rain signifies the struggles she is willing to go through to better her marriage, even if it means getting wet in the process. The “American girl” believes this is a challenge she alone has to endure. Thus, when she announces that she is going to rescue the cat from the rain and her husband George offers to be the hero in the rescue attempt, even though it was a halfhearted offer, she quickly replies “No, I’ll get it.”

With the help of the maid she goes through the rain in search of the cat but when she gets to where she saw it last it has disappeared. The “American wife” becomes even more irritated with herself and her husband when she returns to the room empty handed. She desperately wanted the cat, “I wanted it so much,” but more so, she wanted change in her marriage and change in her appearance. She was tired of her boyish look and felt she needed to be more feminine, “I get so tired of looking like a boy.” However, George was contented with how things were. He barley even shifted from his book when she began scrutinizing her appearance. The only comment of support he could offer was, “You look pretty darn nice,” but she required more for herself.

The cat, even though symbolic, would have allowed her to express her feelings of affection and compassion, “I want to have a kitty to sit on my lap and purr when I stroke her.” George, being insensitive to her needs, did not even offer himself as an outlet for her emotions. Instead his remark to her was, “Oh, shut up and get something to read,” as she continued to utter her discomforts in her appearance and her femininity.

Hemingway’s fictional story does have a surprising ending when the maid brings the “American wife” a “big tortoise-shell cat”. The “American wife” receives what she wanted, an outlet to express her affections and compassions, but in fact, it would not help her marriage. The cat was just a symbol of what she wanted from her husband, George. Unless she can convince him to be more open with her and more lovingly expressive with her, her marriage will still falter. 

"Cat in the Rain" is a short story by American author Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961), which was first published in 1925 as a part of the short story collection In Our Time. The story is about an American man and wife on vacation in Italy.

Contents

  [hide] 

·         1 Background

·         2 Reception

·         3 Plot Summary

·         4 Analysis

o    4.1 The American Wife

o    4.2 George (the Husband)

o    4.3 Selfishness

·         5 Writing Style

o    5.1 The "Iceberg Theory"

o    5.2 The Iceberg Theory in Cat in the Rain

·         6 In the Media

o    6.1 "Cat in the Rain": The Movie

·         7 References

[edit]Background

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 Diliberto…Hemingway 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 can’t have hair or any fun I can have a cat.”[1]

[edit]Reception

"Cat in the Rain" was first published in New York in 1925, as a part of the short story collection In Our Time. In Our Time, which derives its title from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer ("Give us peace in our time, O Lord"), was Hemingway’s first published work. It contains notable short stories such as “The End of Something”, “Soldier’s Home”, and "Big Two-Hearted River”.

When it was published, In Our Time received acclaim from many notable authors of the period, including "Ford Madox Ford, John Dos Passos, and F. Scott Fitzgerald" who praised "its simple and precise use of language to convey a wide range of complex emotions, and it earned Hemingway a place beside Sherwood Anderson and Gertrude Stein among the most promising American writers of that period."[2] In a New York Times book review from October 1925, titled Preludes to a Mood, the reviewer praised Hemingway for his use of language, which he described as "fibrous and athletic, colloquial and fresh, hard and clean; his very prose seems to have an organic being of its own. Every syllable counts toward a stimulating, entrancing experience of magic."[3] Author D.H. Lawrence, who is notable for his novel Lady Chatterley's Lover, also reviewed In Our Time. Lawrence wrote that In Our Time was "a series of successive sketches from a man's life...a fragmentary novel...It is a short book: and it does not pretend to be about one man. But it is. It is as much as we need know of the man's life. The sketches are short, sharp, vivid, and most of them excellent."[4] Another reviewer commented that Hemingway's writing illustrated that the author had "felt the genius of Gertrude Stein's [his longtime mentor and friend] Three Lives and had obviously been influenced by it."[5]

[edit]Plot Summary

“Cat in the Rain” recounts the story of an American couple on vacation in Italy. The entirety of the story’s action takes place in or around the couple’s hotel, which faces the sea as well as the "public garden and the war monument".[6] 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.”[6] 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".[6]

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.”[6] 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,”[6] which she gives to the American wife. This ending is both abrupt and ambiguous, and “hinges on the mystery of the tortoise-shell 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."[7]

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.”[8]

[edit]Analysis

[edit]The American Wife

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 child-like. 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 office…Something felt very small and tight inside the girl”.[6] The wife’s 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")[6] 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 and…candles.”[6] 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.

[edit]George (the Husband)

Throughout the story, George, the protagonist’s husband, is painfully unaware of his wife’s needs. Although at the beginning of the story he offers to retrieve the cat, “‘I’ll do it,’ her husband offered from the bed,”[6] 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.'"[6] George’s 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.”[6]

[edit]Selfishness

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.”[6] 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.

[edit]Writing Style

[edit]The "Iceberg Theory"

Hemingway biographer Carlos Baker writes that Hemingway learned from his short stories how to "get the most from the least, how to prune language, how to multiply intensities, and how to tell nothing but the truth in a way that allowed for telling more than the truth".[9] The style has become known as the iceberg theory, (or sometimes the "theory of omission,") because in Hemingway's writing the hard facts float above water while the supporting structure operates out of sight.[10] Hemingway himself is responsible for the naming of this theory, writing in his non-fiction work Death in the Afternoon: "If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water."[11] As evidenced from this quote, Hemingway believed the writer could describe one thing though an entirely different thing occurs below the surface.

Hemingway learned how to achieve this stripped-down style from his friend Ezra Pound, who, according to Hemingway, "had taught him more 'about how to write and how not to write' than any son of a bitch alive".[12] Similarly, Hemingway was influenced by his friend and fellow author James Joyce who taught him "to pare down his work to the essentials".[13] A third important influence on Hemingway was American author Gertrude Stein, who Hemingway met during his time in Paris during the 1920s.

[edit]The Iceberg Theory in Cat in the Rain

This "Iceberg theory" is evident in Hemingway’s short story "The Cat in the Rain": "Though Hemingway learned as a professional reporter how to report facts as they were, he felt that there was a limit to representing reality. This is what he conveys through Cat in the Rain."[14] The idea that there is "something below the surface" to this story is particularly evident in relation to the cat. The cat is not just a cat. Instead, as Professor of English Shigeo Kikuchi writes, the animal’s nature is shrouded in mystery: "The moderately distant location of the room and the two words suggestive of the cat’s size, have the effect of concealing from the reader the cat’s true size and sort [which makes] it impossible to identify the “cat in the rain.”[15] But what does the cat represent? One explanation that scholars have offered is that the cat is a physical manifestation of the wife’s desire for a child: “The cat stands for her need of a child.”[16]

Other examples of things being more than they appear abound throughout the story. In one line, Hemingway mentions: “A man in a rubber cape…crossing the empty square to the café.”[17] Although this character at first might seem innocuous, it was not Hemingway’s style to add meaningless interludes to his stories. Therefore some scholars have taken this character to represent a “rubber condom” which the use of “prevents her from becoming pregnant, which was her main dream.”[18]

Cat in the Rain – Critique/Summary

Summary:

The story “Cat in the Rain” written by Ernest Hemingway is about a couple that stay in Italy. The woman in the story sees a cat abandoned outside in the rain under a table and wants to get him and bring him into her hotel room. When she finally convinces her husband to let her go out and get him, it is gone. She returns to the room with out a cat and her husband is still propped up on a pillow reading his book. He insists she lay down and read a book, when she starts talking about how much she wants a cat, how she wants it to be sitting in her lap as she brushes her hair. A short while later one of the hotel workers who helped her try to find the cat the first time had discovered his presence and bought him to her.

Critique:

The story “Cat in the Rain” talks about a cat stuck outside in the rain, but I don’t think that this is what Hemingway meant when he wrote this story. I like how Hemingway started the story off with describing the setting, where the two Americans were and how they were the only ones stopping in to this particular hotel. It gives the reader something to picture right off the bat. I think that Hemingway could have described the characters in more detail to get a better understanding of them. Also I think the in-depth description of the hotel wasn’t necessary I would of liked to see the description put in to the characters more. I really liked the way Hemingway’s character the American Woman acted because it felt very real to something in real life. The way Hemingway portrayed the woman at first was more along the lines of a nagging wife, but when she goes to the window to see the cat her persona changes, I liked this because it made me get into her head and see how she was feeling Hemingway started in a unique way because I very rarely see a story start like this, and he pulled it off very well. The description of the location and setting pulled me right into the story, I liked this because it kept me interested and wanting to keep reading. I think the title that was given to the wife as the “American Wife” lacks individuality and has no special meaning, signifying that she is just a mere American Woman and nothing else. I think that the title Hemingway chose was to portray that the wife felt that she was condoned to George her husband and that he never really paid much attention to her. This lack of attention makes her feel that she does not have much freedom to express herself and keeps much of her feelings inside. She definitely feels the restraint that George has put on her, and in order to please him, she attempts to make herself compact just like the cat. I think this is why Hemingway makes it seem that she is so attached and drawn to helping the cat out of the rain.

In Cat In The Rain, Ernest Hamingway illustrates the problems that an American couple have, and symbolizes the loneliness and protection need of the American woman by a cat which she sees huddled under a dripping table outside their Paris hotel, and attempts to rescue . Her husband, George, spends the entire story curled up in bed reading a book, paying little attention to his wife.

The American woman is struggling because this marriage can't meet her expectations. The woman wants a stable home where she is loved and respected by her husband. But her husband doesn't share the same idea and he is content with their current lifestyle. The woman wants to have the cat so that she can have it sit on her lap and purr when she strokes it. She wants o eat with her own silver and she wants candles. She wants new clothes and wants it to be spring. Her wishes may seem like vanities, but the other hand these "wishes" are symbolic of a deeply-felt human need with which we can sympathize

The hotel keeper's attitude towards her is like a father. It is quite different from her husband's senseless behaviour. When she is going out to get that cat, her husband only offers to go, however he doesn't insist, that means he dosn't pay attention to her wife's desires. But the hotel keeper actually prevents her from the rain, so that is the reason why she liked him. Hotel keeper gives her what she needs, respect and protection. And this makes her feel small and important at the same time.

The author focuses on the American man's dominance over his wife. Even she doesn't like her hair, she doesn't change it. She wants to look like a woman however her husband is happy...

The sample of emotive prose, which has been chosen for stylistic analysis, is a short story "Cat in the rain" by Ernest Hemingway. It has been chosen because it is suggestive and contains a definite psychological implication. The story