Cat In The Rain - A Short Story Written By Ernest Hemmingway

Cat In The Rain is a Short Story written by Ernest Hemingway. For such a brief story, “Cat in the Rain” has inspired an impressive amount of critical commentary and disagreement: not only about its possible autobiographical elements but also about what it means—and even about what actually happens. Is there one cat—or are there two? Would the wife be satisfied with what happens at the end of the story, or disappointed? Is her desire for a “kitty” really a longing for a baby—as the above passage from Hemingway’s letter seems to imply? In a thorough and now-classic examination of the story, the novelist David Lodge explains it has provoked conflicting interpretations: “although it is a well-formed narrative, with a clearly defined beginning, middle and end, the primary action is not the primary vehicle of meaning.” That is, the story presents “a plot of revelation (the relationship between husband and wife) disguised as a plot of resolution (the quest for the cat).”