Cat in the rain

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Ernest Hemingway at work as a writer in the hotel in 1944

Cat in the Rain (original title: Cat in the Rain ) is a short story written in 1923 by Ernest Hemingway , which was first published in 1924 in Paris and 1925 in New York in his anthology In Our Time (German title: In our time ). It is about an American couple, the development and needs of women and the crisis in the couple relationship during a vacation in Italy.

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Photo tortoiseshell cat

As in many of Hemingway's short stories, not much happens in terms of content and the reader has to read between the lines to find the essence and deeper meaning of the text.

An American couple spends their vacation in an Italian seaside resort. Due to the constant rain, the place is deserted and deserted. Looking out of the window, the woman in front of the hotel sees a small cat trying to shelter from the rain under a table. Immediately she expresses the wish to fetch and keep the cat, to which her husband, however, reacts very indifferently. He reads a book and doesn’t really care about his wife, even if he casually offers to fetch the kitten herself.

On the way out, the woman starts talking to the hotel owner, who treats her very courteously and respectfully. She likes him very much and he sends a housekeeper after her to hold her an umbrella so she doesn't get wet.

But when the woman got outside, the cat disappeared, which saddened the woman because, as she says, she would have loved to have a kitten. Back in her room, she talks to her husband again. She repeatedly emphasizes her desire for a kitten and also wants her hair to grow out since she no longer wants to look like a boy. However, her husband likes her short hair and he does not respond to her comments and needs. The woman, on the other hand, insists on her desire to "have a cat immediately" when she is not allowed to have long hair or any other pleasure.

At the end of the story, the maid stands in front of the door with a large tortoiseshell cat and says the hotel owner asked to bring it to the woman.

Interpretative approach

For the woman, the desire for the cat expresses her need to break out of the desolate, lonely and unfulfilled everyday life of marriage. She wants a fundamental change in her own life and in her relationship with her husband. She longs for attention, security, warmth and closeness. Their desire not to have their hair cut short like a boy ( “clipped close like a boy's” ), to dine at a table with silver cutlery and candlelight and to buy new clothes ( “And I want to eat at a table with my own silver and I want candles [...] and I want some new clothes ” ) is interpreted in various interpretations of the story as an expression of their desire for femininity and romantic love. On the symbolic level of meaning, the little cat, together with the woman's reference to her longing for spring ( "And I want it to be spring [...] and I want a kitty" ) , reflects her desire for pregnancy.

The well-being of women is at the same time paradoxical. She behaves almost childlike in her urge for cats, while her desire to take responsibility for a living being expresses her striving for maturity and adulthood.

The personal narrator points out several times that the woman likes the hotel owner very much, because he treats her like a grown woman, but at the same time acts as caring and protective as a father towards her. In contrast, her husband appears indifferent and disinterested; he does not respond to their needs in any way and is also hostile to their desire to grow their hair. As emphasized in various places in the short story, he only shows interest in his books ( “He was reading again” ). Also striking in this short story is Hemingway's special narrative style, which is limited to brief references or hints and leaves the actual meaning to the reader's imagination (see also Hemingway's “ Iceberg Model ”). For example, the brief description of the location is used at the beginning of the narrative to introduce a network of contrasting symbols of death and fertility on a deeper level of meaning (cf. for example the narrator's references to the war memorial and the garden in the rain).

In some biographies, Cat in the Rain is viewed as a tribute to Hemingway's first wife, Hadley. The story deals with her loneliness during the first year of marriage, in which she did not receive the attention she had longed for from Hemingway, as well as her desire to conceive.

Publication and reception history

After its publication in New York in 1925, the short story was received favorably in Hemingway's anthology In Our Time , especially in America, but also in England. Hemingway was recognized by well-known contemporary writers such as Ford Madox Ford , John Dos Passos and F. Scott Fitzgerald for his precise use of the language and was immediately considered one of America's most promising young authors. The English writer DH Lawrence also counted the story among Hemingway's excellent literary sketches in a review of In Our Time .

As mentioned earlier, various Hemingway biographers now assume that Cat in the Rain was a tribute to his first wife, Hadley, and that the crisis in the initial marital relationship reflected. Hadley is also said to have saved a cat from the rain during her later pregnancy, which may have inspired Hemingway to the story.

The motif of staring out of the window, used in this story as a symbolic expression of resignation, is also found in later stories, for example in the short story In Another Country published in 1927 .

Others

Hemingway's short story Cat in the Rain inspired film directors Matthew Gentile and Ben Hanks to write a nine-minute short film in 2011, starring Brian Caspe, Veronika Bellová and Curtis Matthew.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See John V. Hagopian, Martin Dolch: Cat in the Rain . In: the same (ed.): Insight I Analyzes of American Literature , Hirschgraben Verlag Frankfurt a. M. 1971, pp. 93-96
  2. ↑ See the interpretation and further evidence in John V. Hagopian, Martin Dolch: Cat in the Rain . In: the same (ed.): Insight I Analyzes of American Literature , Hirschgraben Verlag Frankfurt a. M. 1971, pp. 93-96
  3. ↑ See in detail John V. Hagopian, Martin Dolch: Cat in the Rain . In: the same (ed.): Insight I Analyzes of American Literature , Hirschgraben Verlag Frankfurt a. M. 1971, pp. 93 and 95
  4. ↑ See e.g. B. Carlos Baker: Hemingway - A Life Story . Collins, London 1969, pp. 140 and 169.
  5. ^ A b See Carlen Brennen: Hemingway's Cats - An Illustrated Biography . Sarasota: Pineapple Press 2011 (first edition 2006), pp. 15f., Online [1] .
  6. ^ IMDb: The Internet Movie Database . Retrieved October 9, 2013.

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