Everything you need about "Cat in the Rain" by Earnest Hemingway.

Cat in the rain By Earnest Hemingway

Who is Earnest Hemingway ?

• He is an American ambassador.
• First worked as an ambulance driver.
• After that worked as a war reporter.
• He is famous for his unique literary pieces.

What are the common qualities of modern short stories ?

• Brevity of the story. (short in length)
• Conciseness (Limited characters / single plot / single setting)
• Single impression.
• Abrupt entrance.

“Cat in the rain” introduction


  • Everybody knows cats hate water- so what do they do when it rains.
  • Apparently, they shiver and cover in the driest place they can find. Must be pretty lonely.
  • Hemingway first published “cat in the rain” in 1925 as a part of a short story collection, “in our time”. He wrote it while living in Paris with his first wife Hadley, but the story’s setting in the small Italian town was clearly influenced by his time in Italy as a Red Cross worker in WW1.

* This story is a prime example of the clean lean writing style that he was
developing in this period.

* Hemingway consistently stays on the surface of things, rarely writing
anything “deeper” than what character does or stays. – but this commitment
to staying on the surface, to give only the “tip of the ice-berg” look at what’s
going on, that Hemingway took most seriously as a writer. 

* Hemingway’s tip-of-the-iceberg style of writing is powerful in all of his
stories but here it is especially important. We watch what happens when
someone wants something but does not know exactly why that person wants
it.

Themes

Gender

We have no idea about American wife. The only physical description we
get is of her short haircut that she complains about to his mirror. When George
sees the wife’s haircut “clipped close like a boy’s” Hemingway immediately
follows with George’s remark “I like it the way it is”, which suggest that the
marriage, free an equal as the wife’s modern haircut makes it appear, is
founded on the husband’s refusal to let his wife to be different from himself.

Foreignness

The opening text of “cat in the rain” introduces this theme perfectly:
“There were only two Americans stopping at the hotel”
Even though we proceed through the story from the perspective of the
Americans, and even though the writer is American himself, the husband and
wife are being put in the position of “foreigner” by creating this situation,
Hemingway allows us to look at the American attitude more critically.
Hemingway use mix Italian and English dialogues as a symbol for the
even greater divider and difference between the American couple and the
Italians around them.

Dissatisfaction

The wife’s restlessness is a mounting force in this story. She is unable to
say what is exactly making her dissatisfied in her life instead she herps on a
multitude of small things. Her dissatisfaction with the life she leads with her
husband is particularly problematic because, like the cat trapped under the
table in the rain, there is not really anyway to escape.
In the “cat in the rain” Hemingway uses frustration as a desire for
material things to point towards deeper existential dissatisfactions of his
character.

The American wife’s relentlessness with her restless lifestyle allows
Hemingway to critique the paradox of free spirit American Bohemians in
1920’s.

Isolation

 The cringing kitty under the able in the rain is the ultimate image of
isolation in “cat in the rain” not only is it alone; its also trapped. Like the cat
the American wife and her husband are booth isolated from each other, which
is made all the more palpable since they are living together.
Their isolation from everyone else as the only Americans in the hotel
also reinforces the strangeness and discomfort of their feeling towards each
other.

Temporary setting for setting

Add an unstable strange setting the problems character face would be
more serious since the conversation is confide to each other’s only.
Hemingway uses the technique to analyze the truth psychologies of the
character when they are isolated from general society. 

• Marriage problems and different levels between couples.
• Unsatisfied emotions and desires.
• Selfishness
• The desire for freedom.
• Helpless to save oneself.
• Marriage problems that lead to internal problems.
• Moral paralysis.
• Communicational interrupts and breakdowns.

Plot

Open plot – the story does not have and ending

Symbols

The cat
American wide or a baby (need of a baby / sexual dissatisfaction)

Rain
Unfortunate family life. (pathetic fallacy)

New clothes
Symbolized the need of new life.


Literature devices 


• Visual imagerie
• Omission – Omission is defined as the act of omitting or leaving
something out; a piece of information or ting that left out
• Language – Economical and conversational
• Symbolism
• Temporary setting for setting
• Repetition
• Dialogism
• Writer’s diction
• Charged words
• Motif – Emptiness to show isolation
• Irony
• Abrupt entrance 

What is iceberg theory?

The theory of iceberg or theory of omission is a writing technique coined
by American writer Earnest Hemingway. As a young journalist, Hemingway had
to focus his newspaper reports on immediate events with very little context or
interpretation. When he became a writer of short stories, he retained his minimalistic style, focusing on surface elements without explicitly discussing 
underlying themes. (WIKIPEDIA)

What is the theory of omission?

Hemingway contended that by omitting superfluous and extraneous
stuff, writing becomes more interesting. True meaning of a piece of writing
should not be evident from the surface story; rather, the crux of the story lies
below the surface and should be allowed to shine through. (PREZI)

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