Cat in the Rain

Sofia University

                          Faculty of classical and modern Philology

                       Ernest Hemingway’s  short story “Cat in the rain” –  

                psychoanalysis    

Student: Lora Rosen Naydenova

MA program: Communication: language, literature, media

Faculty number:756  - M                                    

In this essay I will apply the psychoanalysis method to Ernest Hemingway’s short story  “Cat in the Rain”.

The cat is a metaphor of what the wife actually wants. The cat is a symbol of a child.

“I want to have a kitty to sit on my lap and  purr when I stroke her.”

She needs to take care of something.  Basically she is saying that she wants a little child,  that needs her. She wants to be a mother.

“The garden” in front of the hotel, the green color,  and the rain that pours outside are  symbols of fertility, while “ the war monument” is a symbol of death, which could mean that she was pregnant once, but the child died, just like the cat disappeared in the rain. The hotel door is like a doorway to her memories – when she gets out, she suddenly turns from “the American wife” to the “American girl”, who lost her unborn child.  It is implied in the words “a man in a  rubber cape”, that she took contraceptive measures so that she wouldn’t get pregnant. “It was raining harder…” could suggest that she was a few months pregnant , but something happened and she lost the baby.

“The table was there, washed bright green in the rain, but the cat was gone. She was suddenly disappointed.”

“I wanted it so much. I wanted a kitty.”

 “The hotel-keeper” could be the image of her father, who she loves  and respects very much. He always protected her, which is implied when he sends a maid with an umbrella,  the umbrella being a symbol of protection to protect her from the rain, so that she doesn’t get wet. She is the most important thing in the world for him.

When she goes back to the hotel, she suddenly returns back to the reality and she is back referred to as “the wife”. She goes back to George, who is reading his book and is indifferent to what happens around him. Their conversations in their room, could suggest that they are not talking about a cat, but about a child.  A child who the wife wants to protect, just like her father protected her, and it is also implied that George doesn’t really care about the child. When it is implied that the child is in the rain, he says that he is going to go and get him,  but he doesn’t move from the bed. When his wife tells him that the cat is gone, implying that their child is gone, he responds to that:
“Wonder where it went to.”