“The Cat in the Rain” by Ernest
Hemingway is a simple story about a young American couple vacationing in
Europe. Although their marriage appears unexceptional, several aspects of the
story suggest a flawed relationship beneath the couple’s façade of happiness. The
conversation between the husband and wife begins innocently enough as the woman
indicates she wants to rescue a stray cat in the street below from the inclement
weather. It does not take long before the conversation escalates into an
argument that shows the wife’s extreme dissatisfaction with her life. However,
at the end of the story the tensions dissipate as the cat is brought to the
hotel room, and the wife is at least temporarily appeased.
When
the woman first mentions the titular “cat in the rain,” her husband responds,
“I’ll go get it,” without making any move to get up from the bed or put down
his book. His apathy begins to hint at the underlying problems in their
marriage. After his wife’s initial failure in finding the cat, tensions begin
to run high. His wife expresses her general frustrations with her current life:
“I
want to pull my hair back tight and smooth and make a big knot at the back that I can feel,” she said. “I want to
have a kitty to sit on my lap and purr when
I stroke her.”
“Yeah?”
George said from the bed.
“And
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.”
“Oh,
shut up and get something to read,” George said. (…)
While
the wife’s many wants may initially seem to be frivolous, a careful reading
reveals something of substance. Her repeated desire for a cat implies that she
feels a lack of companionship with her husband. This theory is clearly supported
by his curt responses. Moreover, earlier in the story she mentions that she
dislikes her short hair, despite the fact that her husband emphatically states
that he prefers it short. She repeats this complaint in the quoted passage. I
think it is possible that her desire to let her hair grow out suggests her
yearning to break free of the control of her husband.
At
the end of the story, the woman calms down. She says, “(…) If I can’t have long
hair or any fun, I want a cat.” Almost as soon as she makes this proclamation,
there is a knock at the door and her wish is granted by a maid holding a cat,
presumably the one she noticed in the rain.
This
story, though quite distinct and seemingly simple, has the same thread of
disillusion and loss that runs through most of the stories in Hemingway's In
Our Time. Again and again, Hemingway deals with a character's
disillusionment, whether with love, marriage, war, faith, or, ultimately, life.
He somehow manages to present big emotions in simple scenes, as in this
one about a woman who wants a cat.
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A few weeks ago when we were still reading The Things They Carried I stumbled across this website that talks about a current exhibition about the book, and I figured I would share it now:
http://www.nvam.org/AboutEducation-ThingsCarried.xml
