The Cat in The Rain

The Cat in The Rain In the short story the “The Cat in the Rain” by Ernest Hemingway, the cat is a symbol around which the story revolves. As a central symbol, the cat reveals the psychological state and emotional desires of the American wife. When the cat is first observed it is “crouched under one of the dripping green tables. The cat was trying to make herself so compact that she would not be …showed first 75 words of 630 total…

…showed last 75 words of 630 total…husband. The hotel keeper causes her “a momentary feeling of supreme importance”(pg.57) in which she admires the way he wants to serve her. The hotel keeper has provided both symbolic and literal cats from the rain. Without the presence of the cat much of the story would lose it’s significance. The hotel keeper has provided the woman with the attention she is not getting from her husband, at least in the emotional sense.