...“Cat in the Rain” is a short psychological story by Ernest Hemingway. The plot revolves around an American couple on a vacation in Italy; there isn't any preface to the story, we know nothing about the couple’s past. The narration starts straight off when the young woman sees a cat hiding from the rain in the hotel yard. At first sight the setting is ideal: a cozy room on the second floor, a lovely view from the window. However, there is one thing which spoils the whole picture, and that is the rain, which is why the couple stays inside. Rain is also often associated with sadness; to bring home this air of melancholy, parallel constructions are used: "The rain dripped from the palm trees. The water stood in pools on the gravel paths. The sea broke in a long line in the rain and slippedback down the beach to come up and break again in a long line in the rain ". The abundance of water is not accidental either; the rain, the sea, the pool – water symbolizes something inevitable; water is everywhere: it is on the ground, it is pouring from the heavens as though the nature weeps for something. This might also be regarded as a case of parallelism, since as the story progresses we realize that the feelings of the girl are not that positive. Here author also uses alliteration of sounds [r], [l]: "Rain dripped from the palmtrees, the sea broke in a long line in the rain", it brings the rhythm to the description of the weather. The conflict starts to unfold when the girl notices a cat in the rain...
Words: 1037 - Pages: 5
...Hemingway’s In Our Time-“Cat in the Rain” 1.) Composition History A.) Notes about his life with Hadley (Hemingway’s first wife) hint at a story ready to be written, but abruptly postponed. B.) Hemingway’s earliest notes for “Cat in the Rain” were sketched in late February 1923 at Rapallo, the setting of the story. C.) After visiting Ezra Pound in Chambry-Sur- Montreux, Hemingway finished four pages of a manuscript, giving up in the process, labeling it as “False start Rapallo story possible Fascito Story.” D.) The manuscript establishes elements found in his finished product, such as the hotel, train trip from Genoa, and gives a nickname to the wife: Kitty. E.) A year later he returned to the story with another manuscript of ten pages and identified it as a “First Draft Original Manuscript/ March 1924/ E.M.H.” F.) This was followed by a nineteen-page titled manuscript with another rejected title, “The Poor Kitty.” G.) Finally, he titled the typescript “Cat in the Rain.” 2.) Publication History A.) It is likely the story was completed in March of 1924. B.) There is no immediate evidence that Hemingway submitted “Cat in the Rain” for publication. C.) The setting, the subject matter, and the partial indebtedness to T.S. Elliot are possible reasons why Hemingway didn’t want “Cat in the Rain” to be published right away. D.) Another possible reason why Hemingway didn’t publish “Cat in the Rain” right away was because he had his eye on “The Boni Liveright Book” first mentioned...
Words: 964 - Pages: 4
...more complex. He had a high degree of detail in description of places/things and his typically themes in his stories were love, war, loss, wildness etc.. Cat in the rain Writtin by Hemingway and publised in 1925. An American couple is on vacation in Italy. The American wife sees a cat outside in the rain and she wants it very bardly, so she goes out to get it but the cat is gone. She goes back to her hotel room and starts a conversation with her husband. She tells him the things she wants but her husband doesnt seem to be interested at all. But in the end, the padrone comes with a cat to her. There is a very long description of the enviroment (typical Hemingway style). ”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 hotels facing the gardens and the sea.” First of all, he descripes the enviroment like it’s summer but then he writes that it’s raining. It’s sympolizes their relationship. First it was great and they were happy but then it all turned to grey, rain and very cold. The American wife sees a cat outside in the rain in the beginning of the story. The cat sympolizes her need to be responsible for something and her loneliness. She sees the cat as a baby who needs to be taking care of. But her reaction when she sees the cat is a little bit childish. She uses the word ”kitty” which is something a child would say instead...
Words: 913 - Pages: 4
...Cat In The Rain Being married and committed to each other, means listing and showing each other your love. Feeling lonely and bored, and feeling like the person you love the most doesn’t give you anything, but rejection, shouldn’t be a part of a marriage. This is what the wife in “Cat in the rain” seems to deal with. The wife in this story has a lot of needs; especially because of the lack of attention her husband, George gives her. She wants something more, something he doesn’t give her. She’s bored and lonely and wants something more: “Anyway, I want a cat,’ she said, ‘I want a cat. I want a cat now. If I can’t have long hair or any fun, I can have a cat.” – This line actually says a lot about her, because she sounds extremely immature and selfish, but what is really is, is a desperate beg for attention, and not any attention, but his. In some way she’s really egoistic, because at first you would think that she wants to safe the cat, because she feels bad for it, but later on we discover that she actually feels bad for herself, she doesn’t care about the cat and how it feels, she only cares about herself and how she feels. She desires some excitement, and the cat is just a tool to get that. It’s clear to see how the wife, goes from being a grown women, to being childish, because in the beginning of the story, the narrator refers to her as the American wife, but as the story progresses, he refers to her as a girl “As the American girl passed the office...” “Something felt...
Words: 878 - Pages: 4
...Cat in the Rain by Ernest Hemingway | Summary The short story "Cat in the Rain" was written by Ernest Hemingway in the 1920´s. It is about an American couple that spends their holidays in an Italian hotel. It is a rainy day and the American woman sees a cat in the rain, which she wants to protect from the raindrops. When she goes out of the hotel, which is kept by an old Italian who really seems to do everything to please that woman, and wants to get the cat, it is gone. After returning to the hotel room, she starts a conversation with her husband George, who is reading all the time, telling him how much she wants to have a cat and other things, for instance her own silver to eat with. Her husband seems to be annoyed by that and not interested at all. At the end of the story there is a knock on the door and the maid stands there holding a cat for the American woman in her hands.Peculiarities of the introduction The first thing that caught my eyes was the long description at the beginning. First there is a description of the environment in good weather, which means spring or summer, then a description of the momentary situation in the rain. This description creates an atmosphere that is sad, cold and unfriendly. To create this atmosphere Hemingway uses words such as "empty" or "the motorcars were gone". Later on, by looking at the relationship of the two Americans, you can see that this description was a foreshadowing of the state of the couple´s relationship: First it was...
Words: 1182 - Pages: 5
...Cat in the Rain by Ernest Hemingway Summary “Cat in the Rain” is a short story written by Ernest Hemingway. The story takes place in Italy, which we know because some persons in the story speak Italian. The main character’s name remained unknown but in the short story she was called “The American wife”. She lived at a hotel with her husband, George. One day the wife stood at the window looking out and spotted a crouched cat under a dripping table at a café across the square. When she saw the poor cat, she decided to go down and get it. On her way downstairs she met the hotel owner, who stoop up and bowed to her as she passed the office. The wife liked him. She liked every single bit of him. She even liked his old, heavy face and his big hands. When the wife went outside the table was there, washed bright green in the rain, but the cat was gone. She returned back to their hotel room, where George was reading a book. She told him how badly she wanted this cat without knowing why. Afterwards she began criticizing herself and told her husband that she wanted long hair, new clothes, she wanted it to be spring and most importantly she wanted a kitty. Her husband did not seem to take her seriously, as he only told her to shut up and get something to read. Suddenly someone knocked at the door, and the friendly maid held a big tortoiseshell cat pressed tight against her and swung down against her body. She had brought the cat for The American wife. Characterization of The American...
Words: 625 - Pages: 3
...about twelve little girls who lived together in a schoolhouse with Miss Clavel, their teacher. Madeline was the smallest out of all of the girls, but was also the most wild. One night, Madeline started crying and woke up Miss Clavel in another room. Madeline was then rushed to the hospital where the doctors removed her appendix. Days later, Miss Clavel and the girls went to visit Madeline in the hospital. Madeline showed everyone the scar on her belly, and all of the girls became very jealous of her. That night, all of the girls woke up Miss Clavel because they were all crying because they also wanted to get their appendix out and to get a scar across their stomachs. “She was not afraid of mice – she loved winter, snow, and ice. To the tigers in the zoo Madeline just said, ‘Pooh-pooh,’ and nobody knew so well how to frighten Miss Clavel”(Bemelmans 13-15). The theme of this book is bravery. Madeline always was the one to be outgoing and go against the grain despite her size. Madeline was the first to be excited about any endeavor, and the other eleven girls knew that. When Madeline had to get her appendix out, rather than being weak and gloomy afterwards, she was jumping around showing off...
Words: 1484 - Pages: 6
...Ernest Hemingway – Cat in the Rain Ernest Hemingway was a very famous American author who managed to publish seven novels, six short story collections, two non-fiction works; Win the Nobel Prize in literature, survive two successive plane crashes and be a part of three wars, before committing suicide at the age of 61 in 1961. “When less is more”- Ernest Hemingway’s career as an author was based on that phrase. Many, if not all, of his short stories have been written in a minimalistic writing style and Cat in the Rain is no exception. Throughout the short story, it’s easy to see that the Cat in the Rain is a minimalistic short story. We see a lack of details regarding the characters. We don’t get to hear the name of the wife, we only know her as the American wife, or the American girl. We don’t get a lot of details either about the American wife or George, the husband. But in the end we do get some details about the American wife but only because she talks loudly about her appearance and desires in front of her husband. Unimportant things do in some cases have a decent description in a minimalistic story, and that’s also the case in Cat in the Rain; the settings outside the hotel and the war monument have been described pretty well. The sentences are short and the language is simple, which confirms that this is a minimalistic short story. The American wife and her husband don’t have a healthy relationship. George doesn’t really pay attention to his wife, and it is only...
Words: 728 - Pages: 3
...Stylistic analysis of the story “Cat in the Rain” by Earnest Hemingway The author. The story under the title “Cat in the Rain” was written by Ernest Hemingway. He was an American author and journalist. His economical and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the mid-1950s, and won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954. He published seven novels, six short story collections, and two non-fiction works. Additional works, including three novels, four short story collections, and three non-fiction works, were published posthumously. Many of his works are considered classics of American literature. The summary. The story describes an American couple, who have a trip to Italy. The story begins with the woman, who sits in the hotel’s room and sees a cat in the window. It’s a rainy day and woman wants to protect the cat. Then she leaves the room and when she returns, she doesn’t see the cat. All the time her husband spends reading. She tries to tell him about her desire to buy a cat and some other things, but he doesn’t listen to her. At the end of the story there is a knock on the door and the maid stands there holding a cat, for the woman, in her hands. The structure of the text. Every text is organized in a specific way, and this is not identical. Speaking about its structure there is an introductory paragraph...
Words: 890 - Pages: 4
...Psychoanalytical Interpretation of “Cat in the Rain” Hemingway’s meaning to the “Cat in the Rain” is more than just the literal cat in the rain. Yes, the story talks and discusses a cat that is stuck in the rain; but, this is not the true meaning of Hemingway’s story. The character the “American Wife” shows similar elements of confinement and restraint as to the cat in the story. The constant obsession for the cat in the story from the wife shows that she thinks of herself as the cat and wants to be freed from this rain. Two Americans are stuck in a hotel where their room is facing the sea, a public garden and a war monument. A rainy day it seems to be there somewhere in Italy and the American wife is looking out the window and she spots a cat under the table that is trying to keep dry from the rain. The American wife begins to express a desire for many things in the story. She tells her husband if she cannot have fun on this trip that she should get anything she wants. She starts to request material goods and the story shows that she requests these things due to the lack of intangible goods such as love and affection. The American wife suddenly becomes obsessed with the idea of saving this random street cat. You can metaphorically say the cat is her and she is trying to save the cat from the rain and in the Americans wife case the rain is the lack of love and affection. But, George (her husband) ignores her desires and treats her as if she was a little girl of no importance what so...
Words: 983 - Pages: 4
...define beauty and love in the twisted preserved society. In “The Bluest Eye” (Toni Morrison) takes place after the Great Depression. A time were African Americans were discriminated against because the color of their skin. White skin is beautiful black skin meant ugly. Each culture has its own standard of beauty, appearances will vary among culture. Beauty varies due to different cultures, locations and also time periods. The novel revolves around the life of the main character Pecola. Pecola is a young African American girl that prays for blue eyes with the hope of being beautiful. Pecola feels like blue eyes will make her...
Words: 1417 - Pages: 6
...Cat in the in rain My assignment will contain an analysis of the short story: “Cat in the rain” written by Ernst Hemmingway. In my analysis and discussion I will focus on literary modernism and the lost generation, what typical features of the period, of the generation and of Hemingway’s style we see in the text, besides the text in from the 1920’s. The story is written in third person omniscient narrator, who deals with several different characters appearing in the short story. In the story we follow a couple and particularly the woman, and her vision on the relationship between her and her husband. She deals with many different issues, which appears in the way she is described throughout the story, and by the way she interacts among the other characters. The couple is on vacation in Italy, where they are staying at a hotel. The story takes place a rainy day. The American woman is looking outside the window, when she suddenly sees a cat hidden under a table from getting wet by the rain. She decides to go outside, to save the cat. On her way, to rescue the cat from the rain, she comes across the padrone of the hotel. He sends a maid out to help the American girl. When they gets to the table, where the cat were suppose to be, it was strangely enough gone, in proportion to how strange it is for a cat to walk into the rain, when they hate water. When she returns to her room, she is al of the sudden sad and annoyed. Without knowing why, she just wanted the cat so bad. When she...
Words: 760 - Pages: 4
...Hartford, Connecticut One of the very first witch hunts that happened in America, took place in Hartford, Connecticut. The witch hysteria began when Elizabeth Kelly’s parents assumed a woman named Goody Ayres bewitched Elizabeth and made her ill. This assumption arose when Elizabeth came home with Ayres and shouted, “Father! Father! Help me, help me! Goodwife Ayres is upon me. She chokes me. She kneels on my belly. She will break my bowels. She pinches me. She will make me black and blue.” (Woodward) After Kelly died, a girl named Ann Cole became ill and accused Rebecca Greensmith, a rude lady, who had already been accused by others in the Kelly case. “The most damning testimony supposedly came from Greensmith herself, who reportedly admitted to having “familiarity with the devil” and said that “at Christmas they...
Words: 1513 - Pages: 7
...story of her life. Starting in the chapter "The Voice From The Wall" Lena narrarates her younger parts of life, going to the chapter "Rice Husband" a chapter telling the parts of her life when she is a young adult. In the very begining Lena tells the readers of a time when she was five and a dark side of her mother Gu Ying-ying (Betty St.Clair) sprang from the basement in their Oakland house. The door was barricaded with a chair, chains and key locks. One day she tried to open the door and fell headfirst into the dark basement. That day her mother tells she why she should never open the door again, "He had lived there for a thousand years, and was so evil and hungry that had [Ying-ying] not rescued [Lena] so quickly, [the] bad man would have planted five babies in [Lena] then eaten [them] all in a six-course meal, tossing [their] bones on the dirty floor" (103.) This began the terrible visions Lena saw "[She] saw these things with her Chinese eyes,the part she got from her mother" (103.) As she got older she saw things not seen by the white girls at school. All through her life her mother hide the terrible things from her, "The Evil man in the basement," and "The lady sitting on the sidewalk old and young at the same time, with dull eyes as if she hasn't slept in many years. The tips of her fingers and toes were rotted." (103-105.) Her mother tried to teach her to beware of all outcomes in the world, to make Lena see what comes of taking any risk. Lena and her father Clifford...
Words: 947 - Pages: 4
...female character, Selina Kyle/Catwoman played by Michelle Pfeiffer, by giving specific examples from the film that categorizes her in this topic. The three main concepts that I will be focusing on in my essay are as followed: the good girl/bad girl dichotomy, beauty and the fragmentation of the female body, and saving and punishing women. “I am afraid we haven’t properly housebroken Miss Kyle.” At the Start of the movie, right away you get a sense of how women, in this case Selina, are treated in this movie. She is a prime example when it comes to the good girl/bad girl dichotomy concept. At the beginning, Selina is showcased as a very shy, timid woman who works long hours for her needy boss. Then when we get a glimpse in her apartment, you realize that Selina hasn’t grown up at all. Her whole apartment is painted pink along with a number of cats, stuffed toys, and doll houses. All of which is unusual for a grown woman like her to have in her apartment. However, when Selina transforms into Catwoman, she poetically destroys everything that she was on the inside and out with the help of black spray paint and a skin tight black leather cat suit. Becoming this new sexual, seductive, powerful woman who seeks to punish and hurt any man that comes in her way. There is a big change of character when Selina becomes Catwoman. She is not the shy, timid girl we once saw on screen; she becomes this power house of sexuality and seductiveness. This leads me to my next point, representation...
Words: 625 - Pages: 3