Ernest Hemingway’s “A Cat in the Rain”: Symbolism.

AUTORA: Vanesa Duque León

“A Cat in the Rain” is a non-fiction story that belongs to Ernest

Hemingway’s collection.

In a 1958 interview, Hemingway expressed his literary

concern in a way that shows how his art both depends
on and radically departs from conventional “realism”:
“From things that have happened and from things as
they exist and from all the things that you know and all
those that you cannot know, you make something
through your invention that is not a representation but a
whole new thing truer than any thing true and alive.
(The Harper American Literature, 1156)

In “A Cat in the Rain,” Hemingway demonstrates his ability to

portray real women with problems and to respond to their unhappiness with
real sympathy. “A Cat in the Rain” is, on the surface, a simple tale of an
American couple in Italy.
 Ernest Hemingway’s “A Cat in the Rain”

However, the reader soon realizes that this uncomplicated story

illuminates much deeper meanings. This seemingly mundane plot becomes
symbolic and purposeful under the reader’s gaze.
There were only two Americans stopping at the hotel.
They did not know any of the people they passed on
the stairs on their way to and from their room. Their
room was on the second floor facing the sea. It also
faced the public garden and war monument. There
were big palms and green benches in the public garden.
In the good weather there was always an artist with his
easel. Artists liked the way the palms grew and the
bright colors of the hotel facing the sea. Italians came
from a long way off to look up at the war monument. It
was made of bronze and glistened in the rain. It was
raining. The rain dripped from the palm trees. Water
stood in pools on the gravel paths. The sea broke in a
long line in the rain. The motor cars were gone from
the square by the war monument. Across the square in
the doorway of the cafe a waiter stood looking out at
the empty square.

With the introduction of this single paragraph, Hemingway has set

out the background, that is, the setting of this story. It is a long description
of the environment in good weather, which means spring or summer; then a
description of the momentary situation in the rain. The photographic
description of the place is absorbing and, in it, the weather plays an
important role. Weather descriptions usually constitute substantial part in
Hemingway’s writing and introduce the readers into the atmosphere of the
story. This description creates an atmosphere that is sad, cold and
unfriendly. To create this atmosphere, the author uses words such as
“empty” or “the motorcars were gone”. Later on, we will see this as a kind
of advanced mention to the state of the couple’s relationship. Another
symbolic hint in this introduction is the “war monument”, which is
mentioned three times, probably, to tell us that a conflict is to be expected.

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The American wife stood at the window looking out.

Outside right under their window a cat was crouched
under one of the dripping green tables. The cat was
trying to make herself so compact that she would not
be dripped on.
"I'm going down and get that kitty," the American
wife said.
"I'll do it," her husband offered from the bed.
"No, I'll get it. The poor kitty is out trying to keep
dry under the table."
The husband went on reading, lying propped up
with the two pillows at the foot of the bed.
"Don't get wet," he said.

As we see, in order to introduce the main characters and set up the

situation, Hemingway uses short sentences, dialogues and descriptions of
movements and gestures, which, at first sight, seem to be pointless but are
highly relevant to the plot. The language used is very simple.
In this part of the story the main characters are presented: “The
American wife” and “the husband”. Each of them seem to be isolated from
each other. We see the different paradigms: she is looking out of the
window and he is reading all the time: “The husband went on reading,
lying propped up with the two pillows at the foot of the bed.” “George was
on the bed reading.” “George was reading again.” “He was reading again.”
It has been highlighted by those repetitions that George is reading. We see
the opposition in the things they are doing. The American wife is looking
out the window and sees a cat in the rain, which she wants to protect from
the raindrops. When she goes out of the hotel, kept by an old Italian who
seems to do everything to please her, and wants to get the cat, it is gone.
After returning to the hotel, she starts a conversation with her husband,
George, who keeps on reading. He seems to be annoyed and not interested
at all in what she is saying: “Oh, shut up and get something to read, George
said. He was reading again.”

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The husband’s crass words in conjunction with his inattentive

attitude, characterized him as a stereotypical male who sees little benefit in
taking his wife seriously. He ignores her needs. The way the husband is and
the way he is acting shows the marriage coming apart. The story reflects
certain strains in marriage, the most important of which is communication:
“George was not listening. He was reading his book.” He is alienated while
his marriage is disintegrating.
The story is, in fact, full of symbolism. As Hemingway himself
stated in his Nobel Prize speech acceptance:
Things may not be immediately discernible in what a
man writes, and this is sometimes he is fortunate; but
eventually they are quiet clear and by these and the
degree of alchemy that he possesses he will endure or
be forgotten.1

Or, in other words, “I always try to write on the principle of the

iceberg, “ he told an interviewer. “There is seven-eights of it under water
for every part that shows.” (The Norton Anthology of American Literature,
1633)
We have already analysed the weather, but the water and the cat are
two other important symbols that are interrelated. We see the water from
the very beginning: “It was raining. The rain dripped from the palm trees.
Water stood in pools on the gravel paths. The sea broke in a long line in the
rain.” The water is a symbol of fertility. It is thanks to water that the land
can become fruitful; hence the prevalence throughout the story of images of
water. There is water that is stagnant, like those little pools, and water in
movement, like that in the sea. However, she does not become wet, which
means that nothing can grow from her sterile womb. The water never
touches her: “Do not get wet”. Thus, Hemingway is portraying an attitude
towards marriage: the antipaternity attitude of George, a man who in his

1
www.geocitie.com/Athens/Aegean/1724/catinthe/htm.

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 Ernest Hemingway’s “A Cat in the Rain”

detached existence or in dedication to imaginative activities (“He was

reading his book”), tries to take his wife out of time by arresting her
fecundity.
On the other hand, the cat can be seen as symbolising a baby. The
woman wants to protect that little cat, which stands for innocence and
vulnerability, like a baby. She does not know why she wants that cat so
much (“I don’t know why I wanted it so much. I wanted that poor kitty.”),
but we know it2: she feels the need for something to care for, to be
responsible for, that makes her grow up. George, however, does not need
that, he does not want to have children, he already is grown up, which is
shown by his serious behaviour and that he treats his wife like a child. In
the text, she is even referred to as “”The American girl” or, simply, “the
girl”. Now, we understand why they are having problems with their
marriage- because they are on different levels. They cannot find a mutual
base for their relationship and that makes her bored3 by him and him
annoyed by her. Notwithstanding, George does not understand the problem
of his wife and therefore of their relationship, because when she talks about
letting her hair grow (to make her become more feminine), he just tells her,
with disinterest, that he likes the way it is. But her wish for longer hair is
only the beginning. She tells him that she wants her own silver to eat with
and some candles and a cat, and new clothes, and “it to be spring again”.
We see the immense wish to be an adult at last-as quickly as possible, and
that is why she is now referred as “wife” again.
The sentence that she wants it to be spring again could be understood
as stating her desire for a new spring in their relationship, now that the
process of her growing up has started and she might attempt to find those
basis which may help them to finally solve their problems. Although at the

2
Thus, we also notice that the information is non-restrictive.
3
The rain also symbolises the sadness that she feels and the loneliness.

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time we left them, “It was getting dark”, “It was quite dark and still raining
in the palm trees.”
In the end, she gets a cat, brought by the maid on request of the
padrone. It does not seem to be the same cat, because the first one was a
small cat, referred as “kitty” or “the poor kitty” and this is “a big tortoise-
shell cat”; however, the important thing is that she finally gets something to
take responsibility for and that symbolises the first step in the direction of a
grown-up life. However, even though she seems to be going forward and
improving herself, it seems that their relationship is not going to make any
progress, and in this sense, it is “the American wife” the one that can be
understood to resemble a forlorn cat, a cat in the rain.
In conclusion, most of Hemingway’s stories come out of the author’s
consideration of the relation between life and art and also out of guilt for
his art’s effect upon his life. There is a close link between the story the
narrator (omniscient narrator) is telling and Hemingway himself. There
seems to be certain autobiographical undertone. But, in general, “A Cat in
the Rain” is a recapitulation of Hemingway’s philosophy of life. He
believed that people were isolated, lonely and not able to establish happy
relationships.
Hemingway wrote stories by and for rational creatures
who care about feeling cool and clear inside
themselves, who care about a clean, well-lighted place
for thought and action within the necessary human
limitations. As long as anyone cares for these, the
greatness and cogency of Hemingway’s short stories
will remain undiminished. (Magill,6002).

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BIBLIOGRAPHY.

 The Harper American Literature. U.S.A: Harper College

Publishers, 1993, vol. 2, pp. 1154-1158.

 The Norton Anthology of American Literature. U.S.A: W.W.

Norton and Company, Inc., 1994, pp. 1633-1635.

 Magill, Frank N. (ed), Masterplots. U.S.A: Magill, 1976, vol.10,

p.6002.