Analysis of Hemingway’s Short Story, Cat in the Rain.

Everybody knows cats hate water—so what do they do when it rains?

Apparently, they shiver and cower in the driest place they can find. Must be
pretty lonely. They just can't get a break.

Every word means something, every image is there for a reason, and each
punctuation mark is important. This is a story that is not going to waste your
time…and one that you'll probably spend more time thinking about than reading.

It's set in a hotel on the Italian coast and takes place on a rainy day as an
American couple hangs out in their hotel room. The story is about a woman who
spots a cat in the rain. And that's it.

Hemingway consistently stays on the surface of things, rarely writing

anything "deeper" than what a character does or says—but it's this commitment
to staying on the surface, to giving only the "tip of the ice-berg" look at what's
going on, that Hemingway took most seriously as a writer. He may not articulate
the feelings and frustrations in that hotel room, but we sure do feel them. Each
action has a bulk of unspoken meaning beneath it and it's our job to dive down
into and explore. If you have ever known what it's like to feel something deeply,
to want something very much, but not be able to name it…then you should care
about this story.

We watch what happens when someone wants something, but doesn't know
exactly why she wants it. The wife wants things like long hair, a cat, and silver,
but in the end, all of that wanting simply suggests that she is unhappy in her
marriage. She likes a lot of things about the padrone (his hands, his demeanor),
but all of that liking has to do with the way he makes her feel: alive and wanted.

Is the wife aware of these bigger, deeper feelings and desires? Not really,
but Hemingway makes us aware of them and makes us realize the way in which
all of our wants are just the frosty iceberg tips of deeper, larger desires.

Summary

The story takes place in a hotel on the Italian coast on a rainy day. We are
introduced to an American couple waiting out the rain in their room above the
town square. He is reading. She is looking out the window. The wife spots a cat
outside, huddling under a table in the rain, and decides to go out to rescue it. Her

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husband, with no great concern, tells her not to get wet and goes back to his
reading.

Downstairs, the owner or "padrone" of the hotel bows to the wife and
Hemingway lingers for a moment on all the reasons why the wife likes him so
much. She goes outside, followed by the maid with an umbrella, but doesn't find
the cat and returns to her room. The husband, George, is still reading as the wife
sits down before her mirror and starts listing the array of things she wants and
wants to change. Frustrated, George quickly tells her to "shut up" and returns to
his book. The wife complains that if she can't have any of the other things on her
list, she at least wants a cat. Just then, there's a knock at the door. It's the hotel
maid, holding a large cat—a gift for the "Signora," she tells them, from the
padrone.

The scene is set: a hotel where two Americans are staying. The opening
paragraph describes how the view from the window of the couple's room looks
out over the public gardens, a war monument and the sea. It's raining cats and
dogs, and the scene of the dripping palms, empty square, and regular waves on
the beach make everything feel sort of monotonous and abandoned. From the
window, the American wife notices a cat crouching underneath a table in the
square, "trying to make herself so compact that she would not be dripped on"
(1). The wife tells her husband, who is reading on the bed, that she's going to go
down and bring it in. He offers to get it for her, but she declines and he goes
back to reading, telling her not to get wet.

The wife goes downstairs and finds herself in the presence of the hotel
keeper or "padrone," a large, older man who stands up from his desk and bows
to the wife as she approaches. She likes this guy for some reason. We know this
because of how she "likes" his hands, his dignity, his face, his seriousness and
"the way he felt about being a hotel-keeper" (1). When she opens the door, the
hotel maid appears behind her with an umbrella and follows her into the rain.
When the wife doesn't find the cat under the table, the maid notices her
disappointment and asks what's wrong…all in a nice mix of Italian and English
phrases. The maid is a little skeptical at the thought of a "gatto" hanging out in
the rainy square, but the wife only affirms that she saw it and that she "wanted it
so much" (1). The two women go back into the hotel and as the wife passes the
padrone's office, he bows to her again.

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 Hemingway describes the strange but wonderful feeling that he gives the
girl: "very small and tight … very small and at the same time really important"
(2). When the wife comes back the hotel room, her husband, George, is still
reading on the bed and asks if she found the cat. She sits in front of a mirror,
looks at her profile, and asks if she would look better with long hair. Her
husband replies no, and she begins to talk about the things she feels she wants—
a cat, long hair that she can feel and twist, her own candles and silver, and for it
to be spring outside. The husband tells her to shut up and she pulls back to a
simple desire for a cat. As the room grows darker, there's a knock at the door.
It's the maid, and she's holding a cat—a gift for the "Signora" from the padrone.

Themes

Gender:

Hemingway barely describes the American wife in "Cat in the Rain." Is she
pretty? Is she tall? Is she a blonde or brunette? We have no idea. The only
physical description we get is of her short haircut that she complains about to
her mirror. She laments that she gets "tired" of "looking like a boy." Short hair
on women is something we're pretty used to seeing now, but in the 1920s, this
was not the case. The wife's hairstyle would have read as being much more
overtly "boyish" than it would today—especially in a more traditional European
setting like this Italian town. In America, the style for women in this era leant
towards androgyny: short haircuts and drop-waisted dresses that de-emphasized
hips, waist, and bust. On the surface, this meant greater freedom for women, but
it doesn't seem to be having this effect on the American wife. The fact that she is
"tired" of such a relatively new and revolutionary trend is particularly notable.
Like all the other "liberated" aspects of the young couple's life-style—their
intellectualism, their globetrotting, their non-materialism—Hemingway seems to
be critiquing this progressive style as not entirely satisfying. He portrays a
young woman who is longing to look like a woman and do traditionally
feminine things. We might protest that Hemingway is being a little closed-
minded about women and their roles here, but there could also be a larger
critique of the celebration of "newness" and liberation at the time.

Foreignness and The Other

The opening sentence of "Cat in the Rain" introduces this theme perfectly:

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 There were only two Americans stopping at the hotel. (1)

Even though we proceed through the story from the perspective of these
Americans, and even though the writer is an American himself, the husband and
wife are being put in the position of "foreigner" and "outsider." By creating this
situation, Hemingway allows us (as well as the wife) to look at the American
attitude more critically.

Dissatisfaction

The American wife stood at the window looking out.

This is the first image we are given of the American wife and—surprise—
she seems kind of bored and restless.

"Oh, I wanted it so much. I wanted a kitty."

After deciding that rescuing the cat might make her feel better, the wife is
understandably disappointed when she goes downstairs and it's not where she'd
seen it. This is a great moment to think about Hemingway's narrative choices:
why does he choose to draw out the wife's dissatisfaction in this way? Also…did
this woman really think she could just take this wet, stray cat home to the states
with her?

"I wanted it so much," she said. "I don't know why I wanted it so much. I
wanted that poor kitty."

The wife's desire to "save" the cat from the rain begins to morph into a
sense of "want." She repeats the word three times, which may be due to the fact
that she doesn't know why she wants it. The desire to have, to possess, to
literally hold that cat is the catalyst to all the desires that follow. Why do you
think this is? What is it about that feeling of holding the cat and owning it that
appeals to her? What does it have in common with the other things she wants?

"It isn't any fun to be a poor kitty out in the rain."

Sure, it's kind of a silly statement. Does anyone need to be told that cats
don't love torrential downpours? Not really. This kind of remark, however, does
tell us that the wife sympathizes with the cat—maybe she sees a bit of herself
reflected in the poor, wet kitty.

She studied her profile, first one side and then the other.

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 After examining herself in front of the mirror, the wife's verdict is
ultimately disapproving. It's interesting that her appearance becomes a factor in
her dissatisfaction. Clearly, the boredom or satisfaction of her life rests on more
than her profile and hairstyle—looks are definitely not everything. So why does
she attach her sense of satisfaction to these things here? Why does she express
her discontentment this way?

"I get so tired of it," she said. "I get so tired of looking like a boy."

This statement helps narrow down where the wife's dissatisfaction lies. It's
not herself she's tired of or upset with; it's her appearance. You get the sense that
there is something draining about this boyish appearance—like it's something
she has to keep up, and something that's, to use her words, not very "fun."

"Oh, shut up and get something to read," George said.

Poor George. You get the feeling that he would be perfectly fine if it
weren't for all this complaining from his wife. Let's think more specifically
about why he's irked by this list of "wants" she gives: he can't really do anything
to remedy all her dissatisfactions. They're material and have a lot to do with
property and stability—things George might not be in a position to secure. It's
like an indirect way for the wife to tell George he's just not cutting it for her.

He was reading again. His wife was looking out the window.

This is an awesome example of how careful Hemingway is with his

grammar. "Was reading" and "was looking" are both examples of past participle
verbs—they indicate an ongoing past action. Why is this significant? Well,
notice how you get the husband's past participle action and the wife's right after.
There's a sense that the actions (reading and looking) are kind of ongoing and
continuous. You get the feeling that the husband and wife weren't really paying
attention to what the other just said. Everything has settled right back to where
they started.

George was not listening. He was reading his book.

This book George is reading must have been a real page-turner. This small
description is amazing because it gives 1) the omniscient description of what's
happening 2) a hint that the wife's acknowledging that her husband isn't listening
and 3) a suggestion that George himself is making a conscious effort to not
listen to what his wife has to say. With this three-way perspective that

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Hemingway gives, it's hard not to feel that this sort of inattentiveness has
happened in other "discussions" before.

Isolation

There were only two Americans stopping at the hotel.

"Only" is a pretty lonely word. It relates a feeling of solitude and seclusion,

and it just so happens to be the third word in this story. Right off the bat, we get
a sense of the isolation surrounding this unhappy couple.

Outside right under their window a cat was crouched under one of the
dripping green tables.

What a pitiful, pitiful image. Whether you like cats or not, it's a little hard
not to feel bad for this little one. This scene is crucial to the story because it
becomes the image into which all the wife's feelings of isolation are centered. It
all boils down to this little image of the isolated, drippy cat. Poor thing—we
definitely want to rescue it too.

When she talked English the maid's face tightened.

This sentence is a great example of the isolating effect of language. While

the wife is the most blatantly isolated character in the story, the maid's inability
to join in the wife's conversation is equally potent. Parli Italiano?

She had a momentary feeling of being of supreme importance.

Sometimes "isolation" can be a good thing—as it is here. After being on the

receiving end of the padrone's bow and sign of respect, the wife is given the
feeling of being someone singular, someone worthy of a gesture. In this part, the
lonely isolation she felt before is inverted from a negative force to something
much more uplifting.

George was reading again.

George's unbreakable focus on his book is one of the strongest forces of

isolation in the story. The wife seems to know she's excluded from his attention,
so it's almost as if she's talking to herself throughout the story. How unaware do
you think George actually is of his wife? And to what extent might she want to
be isolated from him?

"I want to have a kitty to sit on my lap and purr when I stroke her."

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 Is it at all strange to you that the wife's fantasy is filled with only herself,
things, and the cat? Notice that there are no other people present in her
fantasyland. The bond that she imagines with the cat is touching indeed, but it
makes us wonder—to what extent do other people cause us to feel more isolated
rather than cure it?

Characters

American Wife: No, we're not forgetful; we simply never learn this
woman's name. Neither the narrator, nor the hotel staff, nor even her own
husband ever address the American wife by her name, which means that we can
only talk about her using the words we're given by the story – American wife,
American girl, and the title used by the maid and the padrone, "Signora." We'll
admit—it's a little awkward since she's also the main character of the story, but
there's a reason behind this awkwardness that's a bit deeper than you might
expect. By not naming her, Hemingway helps us ask how much this character is
an "American wife"—a stereotype or reflection of a typical "American wife" in
the 1920s. Let's consider this, shall we?

The fact that the husband and wife are the only Americans in the hotel
draws particular attention to their nationality. Hemingway is putting them in a
context where they are the most American thing since Wonderbread. We can't
be sure why they're here—maybe a honeymoon, a trip, or the husband's work.
What do you think? Their drifting state also helps us see the importance of their
marriage: being a wife is the only identity the woman seems to have. While her
husband may have his reading (and may choose to listen or not listen, care or not
care), the wife is simply waiting, as if she's dependent upon his movements,
desires and decisions. Or, at least, she seems to be. In many other parts of the
world, people think of Americans as fiercely independent, even rash. This side
of the coin is reflected in the story, too. The wife goes out into the rain on a
whim, speaks her mind, and has the trademark boyish "flapper" haircut that she
critiques while looking in the mirror.

The way she springs into action when she sees the cat tells us a lot about
just how bored she is. The idea of rescuing a cat offers her a temporary sense of
purpose, and perhaps even a more permanent purpose if she gets to keep it…
never mind the fact that she's far from home in an Italian hotel. Think, too, of
the list of "wants" she spouts when she returns to the room: a cat, her own silver,
candles, her own dining table. She doesn't explicitly say she wants a home, but

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that's sort of where all of these things belong, right? The other things she wants,
long hair (when she has short hair), springtime (when it's not), and new clothes
are all desires for change.

She and her husband are living a kind of suspended, floating life—reflected
in the fact that they're living in a hotel room. Juxtapose this, as Hemingway
does, with the hotel owner, the padrone, and what he represents to the wife:
something solid, old, respectful, dignified, serious. All of these attributes belong
to the kind of dream-life she imagines as she sits in front of the mirror. You
might say that it's her very American-ness that she's sick of—it's what she wants
to trade in for the old, solid values of an older and more established country, like
Italy.

George

George is one of the most realistic characters in this story. Think of a time
when one of your siblings was bored, unoccupied, and wanted nothing more
than to get your attention. You may have been reading, like George, watching a
game, or doing homework, and probably wanted nothing more than to be left
alone. George is clearly pretty content with staying put—unlike his wife.

The wife in this story is almost constantly in motion, but her husband is the
complete opposite of this. He's perfectly content with his reading. He even
suggests that his wife does the same after throwing a cranky "shut up" in her
direction.

George is the most inactive figure in the story. His eyes look up from the
book now and then, he "shifts" at one point, but the guy never actually leaves the
bed. George's sense of stability and satisfaction is in the life of books, you might
say, rather than in his own life—the one that he shares with his wife, and it's
clear in this story that she's starting to feel and voice dissatisfaction.

In a way, George's character represents everything the wife wants to

escape. Her wish list is full of material goods, which can be seen as at odds with
her husband's fondness of intellectual fulfillment. George might sense her
dissatisfaction with him, which would explain the slightly touchy "shut-up."
Then again, he's just trying to read his darn book.

It's pretty amazing how Hemingway makes George so relatable considering

how little face time he gets in the story. Not only does he never leave the bed, he
also says very little. It's rather the way he says things that give you a sense of his
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character. For example: when he tells his wife that he will go down for the cat,
he doesn't "say" it or "insist" upon it, he simply "offered" the remark—"from the
bed" (5) His tone is pretty noncommittal, and his wife clearly knows this,
judging by the way she brushes it aside.

This is in marked contrast, of course, to the padrone and what the wife likes
about him, like "the way he wanted to serve her" (12). Compare the husband's
attitude toward his wife going out in the rain to the padrone's. George simply
says, "'Don't get wet,'" (8); as the maid holds the umbrella behind the woman at
the door, she insists, 'You must not get wet'" (13). In this way, the actions and
words of the padrone and maid represent what the wife feels she doesn't get
from George: care, maybe even love.

Padrone

Even though the story is told mostly in the third person, we certainly get to
hear a lot about how the wife feels about this guy, with little bits about how "she
liked the way he wanted to serve her" and "she liked the way he felt about being
a hotel keeper." Hemingway could have chosen to tell us that the padrone
genuinely wants to serve her and really likes being a hotelkeeper, but he doesn't
do that. We never hear what the padrone thinks of the wife, at least not from his
own point of view. Instead, by putting these thoughts and judgments in the
wife's mind, he's reminding us of the intense and basic reason why the wife likes
him: he makes her feel a certain way about herself—respected, cared for,
"important." The fact we never hear what the padrone is actually thinking serves
as a reminder of how focused the story's perspective is on the wife's experience.

So, understanding that everything we know about the padrone is from the
wife's perspective, we should turn our attention the very interesting and very
physical responses she has to him:

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. "Small and tight inside"? This phrase is
two things: physical and vague. It sounds like the wife is experiencing a sort of
primal, nameless desire—a far cry from the very articulate statements of the
things the wife "likes" about the padrone. Could she be having a sexual reaction
to the padrone?

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 In some ways, it seems like the padrone is a kind of symbol of masculinity
—or perhaps he is just more masculine than the woman's husband. Hemingway's
emphasis on the largeness of the man and the way he makes the wife feel "small
inside" makes us think her reaction is in some way related to the padrone's
masculinity. He, being so masculine, makes her feel feminine—something that
comes to bear just a few minutes later as the wife tells her husband how she
"gets so tired of looking like a boy"

The Maid

The hotel maid is kind of like the padrone's attendant fairy—his Tinkerbell.
She has a way of simply appearing: popping open the umbrella at the door and
arriving with the cat from the padrone with curiously good timing. She's a little
doubtful that there's actually a cat in the rain, but she still goes out with the
umbrella and remains attentive to the wife.

The small detail of the maid staying outside to close the umbrella while the
wife passes inside is a wonderful representation of how dedicated she is to her
job. Like the padrone, she takes this service very seriously, no matter what her
own thoughts are.

Tone

There's a conflict between restraint and rebellion present in this story, but
Hemingway only suggests it. The husband and wife are at odds and discontent
with one another, but they don't talk about it. Instead, the tension lies in their
lack of real interaction. There's an unhappiness that they are studiously avoiding,
but trapped as they are in their room on this rainy day, as each other's only
company and as the only Americans at the hotel, the awkwardness becomes
pretty concentrated. Hemingway's sentences, both in the dialogue and the
descriptions, are terse.

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