Cat in the Rain by Ernest Hemingway
“Cat in the Rain” by Ernest Hemingway The story under the title “Cat in the Rain” was written by Ernest Hemingway, one of the most favourite American novelists, short-story writer and essayist, whose deceptively simple prose style has influenced wide range of writers. So, the story begins with the description of the hotel where two Americans stopped. It was raining, that’s why the couple stayed in and just a cat in the rain attracted the young woman’s attention. She wanted to get the cat inside but failed and was brought another cat.
The problem of the story lies very deeply and we are to uncover it. The story is written in one mood which constantly and directly increases. It starts from the beginning where it’s created by a persistent and repeated use of the “rain” with a number of phrases associating it, such as puddles, deserted square, glistening war monument. Repetition is one of the widely used and favourite stylistic devices of Hemingway. Here he applies it to reveal the relationship of the protagonist to the old hotel owner (she liked … , she liked… ).
As the verb “to like” is not used to characterize relations of the wife to her husband, this contrast is full of the concealed but easily read meaning. Though the cases of repetition in the story may seem a bit obtrusive, their modifications enter into the core of the narration very organically. They carry emotional character, however penetrating the story the deep sorrow becomes evident gradually. We realize that little, as if meaningless, capricious wishes of a young woman reveal the drama of her fate, the absence of comfort in her life, comparable with the cat in the rain.
The title of the story anticipates this confrontation and the fact that the cat’s image makes great play twice – just increases the total effect. In fact, the young woman pines for love, for home, for her family. And the purring cat she’d like to have and to stroke is a traditional symbol of home and comfort she lacks so much. She wants warmth, attention, care, joy, happiness; however she is brought the cat – a pitiful substitution of that, what she, a young, beautiful woman needs incredibly. This is the main problem of the novel we tried to uncover.
Perhaps the hotel owner didn’t get the reason of her yearnings and took her wish for whim. But dignity, deference and respectfulness of the old man are confronted to egoism and carelessness of George not occasionally. The war monument is also mentioned deliberately. The world George and his wife belong to – is uncomfortable, homeless after-war world, where the fates of young people joined with such hardships and troubles. If to speak about the text itself, it is told in the 3rd person narrative. he description is interlaced with descriptive passages and dialogues of the personages. The author makes extensive use of repetitions to render the story more vivid, convincing, more real and emotional. The author’s style is remarkable for its powerful sweep, brilliant illustrations and deep psychological analysis. Everything he touches seems to reflect the feelings of the heroes. The story reveals the author’s great knowledge of man’s inner world. He penetrates into the subtlest windings of the human heart.
