Ernest Hemingway Cat In The Rain Analysis

Written Task

Ernest Miller Hemingway (1899-1961) was an American novelist, journalist and short-story writer. He wrote in a brief and straightforward style, which in turn had a strong influence on 20th century fiction. In 1954, Hemingway was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature, considered at the time to be the greatest possible achievement in any writer’s career. At this point in his life, Hemingway suffered from deteriorating mental and physical health, while having survived multiple plane crashes. This lead to Hemingway later committing suicide in 1961 at an age of 62 years.

However, throughout his life, Hemingway was married four times with three sons.

The two short stories “Hills Like White Elephants” (1927) and “Cat in the Rain” (1986)

It is set in Italy in a seaside town on a rainy day. The seaside suggests that people go there to get away and forget while the rain, sea and “empty square” (p.157, l.16) convey a feeling of imprisonment. The gloomy feeling often acquired from consistently bad weather hints at things not being the way they are meant to be between the “two Americans” (p.157, l.1). There is a lack of communication / real interaction between the two, shown through Hemingway’s usage of abrupt sentences. This implies that something is being excluded.

The mirror setting in “Hills Like White Elephants” is a train station overlooking the Ebro River in Spain, somewhere between Barcelona and Madrid. There is an analogy between the setting of the hills, and the situation created by Jig. The hills represent a barrier created between “the American and the girl” (p.259, l.6-7) caused by an inability to communicate in a way of coming to an

He states things like: “it’s all perfectly natural” (p.261, l.6), “we’ll be fine afterward” (l.8), “you don’t have to be afraid” (l.15), in an attempt for her to feel reassured. However, through this continuous behaviour he is pushing her to agree with him and to make her decision based on what he says. Although, the girl is portrayed as naïve as she responds with: “I’ll do it and then everything will be fine” (l.38-39), negligently having been brainwashed by her husband.

Comparatively, in “Cat in the Rain”, the padrone acts as a foil for the husband. This highlights the wife’s feeling of negligence. The sentence; “she liked the way he wanted to serve her” (p.158, l.7-8), referring to the padrone, shows that she was not receiving much attention from her husband, if any.

It becomes clear that she sympathises with the cat’s isolation and the hostility of its surroundings as she states: “it isn’t any fun to be a poor kitty out in the rain” (p.159, l.11-12). In this exposition, an analogy between the cat and the woman becomes evident. She feels the restraint that George imposes and to please him, she tries to make herself ‘compact’ just like the cat, who was “trying to make herself so compact that she would not be dripped on” (p.157, l.19-20). Conversely, the rain could represent George’s negative, marginalising, as well as silencing attitude toward the