“Cat in the Rain” is a short psychological story by Ernest Hemingway. The plot revolves around an American couple on a vacation in Italy; there isn't any preface to the story, we know nothing about the couple’s past. The narration starts straight off when the young woman sees a cat hiding from the rain in the hotel yard. At first sight the setting is ideal: a cozy room on the second floor, a lovely view from the window. However, there is one thing which spoils the whole picture, and that is the rain, which is why the couple stays inside. Rain is also often associated with sadness; to bring home this air of melancholy, parallel constructions are used: "The rain dripped from the palm trees. ...view middle of the document...
“Don’t get wet”- he said, but it wasn't a care - he said it just to say something.
The girl goes out, and this is when the hotel-keeper is introduced. We find out that he gives to her more attention than her own husband. Emphasizing the girl's attitude to the hotel-keeper repetition is used: "She liked the deadly serious way he received any complains. 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".
Unconsciously comparing him with her indifferent husband she obviously likes him more. Whatever the source of his attention might have been, it was pleasant for the girl to feel sympathy and care she lacked so desperately.
The climax starts when the girl returns to her room, and the only reaction from her husband was the question if she got the cat. He did not notice her disappointment. Suddenly the girl felt very unhappy; through her sad monologue the writer conveys her dissatisfaction with the life, not stating the true reason directly, but through circumspect complaints about the absence of the cat or her short clipped hair.
"I get so tired of it“- she says about her hair, but it is not just looking like a boy that sheis tired of. She is tired of a boring life, of her indifferent and selfish husbandwho remains deaf to her despair. What she does not say directly is that she is not satisfied with her family life.
She says: "I want to pull my hair back tight and smooth and make a big knot at the back that I feel. I want to have a kitty to sit on my lap and purr when I stroke her".
We might interpret that like she wants to have long hair to look solid and respectable. Moreover,she wants to havechildren and her own house which she associates with silver and candles....
