Cat in the Rain

Much like many other short stories by Hemingway, “Cat in the Rain” is written in simple, clear language. While the beginning of the story features a comprehensive description of the larger setting, the rest of the story employs specific images and brief dialogue. “Cat in the Rain” employs Hemingway’s “theory of omission” (or “iceberg effect”), which Hemingway described this way:

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 (quoted in McPhee, John. “Omission: Choosing What to Leave Out.” New Yorker, 7 Sept. 2015).

In a 1958 interview, he told writer George Plimpton, “Anything you know you can eliminate and it only strengthens your iceberg” (quoted in McPhee). This style of writing requires readers to recognize metaphors and symbols to draw meaning from the text. Hemingway used this strategy to pare his language and create the structure of the story beneath the surface of his characters’ dialogue and actions. It requires that every word is intentional for what it says and does not say.

The opening paragraph of “Cat in the Rain” paints a picture of negative space. The hotel faces a beautiful public garden, a busy square, and a popular war monument, but the rain has changed every part. The public garden, which attracts artists in good weather, is empty. The bronze war memorial glistens with water, but no visitors gather to gaze up at it. The square is empty of cars, so a nearby waiter stands in the café doorway and watches the strangely quiet square because, with no cars, he has no customers. Everything is still except the water; it drips from the palms and shines on the monument. The ocean waves move rhythmically in the rain. Because the emptiness of the scene is entirely due to the rain, the rain represents Disconnection and Isolation in normally communal spaces and activities.

When “the American wife” sees a cat sheltering beneath a table, her first impulse is to rescue it, and she decides to go down in the rain to get it.

Her husband, George, is reading on the bed. Conscious of Traditional Gender Norms (but not interested in his wife’s concern or the plight of the cat enough to follow through), he offers to get the cat for her. Continuing to read, he doesn’t move from the bed toward helping his wife. When his wife says she’ll go herself to get the cat, he simply replies, “Don’t get wet” (120). His casual advice against getting wet seems particularly empty because he doesn’t offer an umbrella or ask if she needs one considering that the rain was the catalyst for the emptiness and disconnection of the square below their hotel room.

On her way to get the cat, the American wife encounters the hotel-owner, whom she immediately likes. He’s old, tall, dignified, and he takes all guest complaints very seriously. He is traditionally male in his demeanor, almost father-like, serious about his business, and intent on tending to his guests. Unlike George, who has been reclining on the bed, seemingly half-listening to his wife, the hotel-owner stands behind his desk, listens, and responds to the American wife with respect. She is conflicted by her feelings; on one hand, his traditional masculinity and demeanor make her feel small. On the other hand, his desire to serve her makes her feel important. Embracing traditional gender roles, she holds those two reactions in tension. She also likes that he takes his role and his position seriously, unlike her husband, who seems to approach his role of husband far more casually and with some boredom.

The maid provides the American wife moments of relief from isolation. The wife recognizes that the cat is alone and vulnerable in the emptiness of the wet outside world. As she steps outside, the wife feels the maid appear behind her. The maid’s warning against the rain is more caring than George’s: “You must not get wet” (121). At the hotel owner’s direction, the maid holds an umbrella over the wife as they go outside together. George may not care if his wife goes out in the rain alone, but the maid and the hotel owner do. When they discover the cat is no longer under the table, the maid urges the wife back inside, saying, “We must get back inside. You will be wet” (121). She keeps the wife dry but surely gets wet herself, and her act of service provides the wife a small opportunity for connection.

Once the wife is back in her hotel room, her frustration overflows as she explains to George how much she wanted the cat. Her frustration stems in part from her inability to articulate why she wants the cat so much. George, who doesn’t stop reading, doesn’t intuit that his wife’s unhappiness is much deeper than the elusive cat. Suddenly, the loss of the cat manifests in her dissatisfaction with her appearance, especially her short hair. George, though, says, “I like it the way it is” (122), and it becomes clear that she has cut her hair short to please her husband and not herself. Her desire for long hair reflects her preference for Traditional Gender Norms as well as her desire for greater agency.

Just as it seems George’s lack of empathy may be one issue at the root of the couple’s Disconnection and Isolation from one another, the narrator notes that George hasn’t taken his eyes off his wife since they’ve been talking. He repositions himself on the bed and compliments her, but his wife is unmoved and doesn’t seem to notice her husband’s growing attention. Her frustration peaks. She wants immediate gratification, but her desires aren’t so easily fulfilled: long hair, a “kitty to sit on my lap” (123), eating with her own silver, a different season, long hair to brush (mentioned again), and a kitty (also mentioned again), and new clothes.

Hemingway’s portrayal of the wife’s litany of desires complicates her character: She sounds spoiled and whiny (“I want a cat […] I want a cat. I want a cat now” [123]). At the same time, she sounds bored of travel and bored of her life with her husband because she twice mentions not having fun: once when identifying with the cat in the rain (“It isn’t any fun to be a poor kitty out in the rain” [122]) and once when she’s venting her unhappiness to George (“If I can’t have long hair or any fun, I can have a cat” [123]). These demands for a cat and references to not having fun make it possible that she’s a young wife with naive, girlish fantasies of marriage—and her husband is tired of her whims. Another interpretation is that she is lonely in her marriage, that her husband is selfish (he’s taken both pillows, for example) and preoccupied with pursuits that interest him more than she does. He doesn’t offer her an umbrella, accompany her on the search for the cat, or try to connect with her when she talks.

George’s response to her outpouring of frustration is abrupt and unkind: “Oh, shut up and get something to read” (123). At this moment, his wife is back at the window where she began the story. This might be a logical place for the story to end; George is reading again, and his wife is back at the window. Their brief exchanges have revealed their disconnection from one another. Readers are left to interpret the wife’s plaintive desire for the cat to replace her unfulfilled desires.

When the maid arrives at their hotel room door with “a big tortoise-shell cat pressed tight against her and swung down against her body” (124), she announces that the padrone sent it for the wife. The story ends without any reaction from George or his wife. Readers are left to guess whether this is the cat the wife saw from the window and, if not, if a different cat would fulfill her needs for connection and caretaking. Hemingway also leaves the couple’s reactions unknown. If it’s a different cat, the wife may feel that the padrone, like George, has minimized her need for agency, and, like the cat, she is isolated in an empty world.