“Cat in the rain” by Ernest Hemingway

Categories: Ernest Hemingway

The Analysis of the brief story "Cat in the rain" by Ernest Hemingway. The discourse under analysis is a brief story titled "Cat in the rain". It is composed by Ernest Hemingway, an American author and journalist. The story has to do with an American couple that is staying in a hotel in Italy. The wife wishes to get a feline that she saw under the rain, while her spouse doesn't appear to care much about her.

It is obvious that "Feline in the rain "has much deeper tones of significance.

The reader can see that something is not right, it does not seem to be a happy marriage and there is a surprise dispute. The cat in the story signifies something that the American woman wish for, she certainly requires some changes.

The setting of the story is made to appear familiar and anticipated by the means of using the guaranteed article E.g.:"the hotel", "the general public garden", "the war monolith", "the motor-cars", the description seems to be really typical.

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The description of the hotel is very comprehensive, but basic. The result of simplicity and familiarity is also attained by lack of adjectives and usage of parallel structures and basic tenses. The very first paragraph abounds in nominal structures "public garden", "war monolith" etc, and the repetition of them gives us a feeling that the situation is rather stereotypical. The repetition of the word "rain" E.g.: "It was drizzling. The rain dripped from the Palm trees."; "... in the rain" and focus on the bad weather set the state of mind of the story.

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It is quite calm, bleak and stable.

The lack of development can be observed also through the use of short sentences and same structures. In this story conversation is used to reveal the relationships between the main characters and as means of character drawing. Throughout the story, the American wife becomes increasingly childlike. She uses word “kitty” or “poor kitty” several times in the story, as if she was a child, we might assume that she is rather capricious, because she constantly repeats word “want” and parallel structures, but she does not seem to know what she really longs for. E.g.:” I wanted it so much”;”I want a cat. I want a cat now.” Her husband is quite uninterested and even irritated. The syntactical organization of his speech is very simple and colloquial. His irritation is shown through the use of intensifiers and the imperative mood.

E.g.:”pretty darn nice”;”shut up and something to read” He answers just to be polite, but actually he is ignorant and passive. E.g.:”I like it the way it is”;”yeah”;”you look pretty darn nice”. He treats his wife like a thing and things do not usually have names, just as the wife in this story. On the contrary the hotel keeper and the maid, they do not just want to be polite, they want to show their care. They use both languages and the maid uses modal verbs, as if she talked to a child. E.g.:”you must not get wet”;”we must get back”. We can also notice that when the American wife talks to her husband she is referred as “wife” and when she talks to the maid and the hotel-keeper she is referred as “girl”, that also shows their different attitudes to her and probably the way how she really feels. The image of the cat in the story is symbolic.

It is the symbol of the wife, her mood and feelings. When she says “it is not any fun to be a poor kitty out in the rain”, the use of indefinite article shows that she probably means herself, not just the cat that she saw in the rain. She is obviously searching for something to satisfy her, she needs some changes in her life, as she repeats:”I want a cat”; “I want to have a kitty” again with the indefinite article it is not a particular cat, but something to love and to care of. By the means of using the free indirect speech the author probably shows his opinion. His point of view is merged with the American girls’ point а view , that he may be takes her side and even feel sorry for her.

Updated: Nov 01, 2022
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“Cat in the rain” by Ernest Hemingway. (2016, Aug 16). Retrieved from https://studymoose.com/cat-in-the-rain-by-ernest-hemingway-essay

“Cat in the rain” by Ernest Hemingway essay
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