The people we meet in this story are the couple (George and the nameless wife), the padrone, the waiter, the maid and the rain coat man. We are not supplied with any information about the waiter (who appears on the first page and seems to voice the first part of the story), nor are we supplied with information on the rain coat man. The padrone is attentive and seems to be everything her husband is not.
Putting the couple up against each other reveals something quite interesting and gives us the impression that they are total opposites. The wife symbolizes nature in her want of a cat, and her way of looking out of the window (natural use of eyes) and George symbolizes culture by his total absorption in his book (cultural use of eyes). Her looking out the window is a way for her to signal her want and need for community – or more so, the desperate need of someone to love. His reading a book is a substitute for community and even more a remedy for boredom. He is bored by his wife, he is bored with his life. She is a joyous person and he is constantly bored and longing for something exciting to happen. She seems to be a harmonious union of nature and culture, but when she is with her husband she is disharmonious i.e. bored which Hemingway sneakingly implies when he has her (when she is with her husband) looking out on the empty square in heavy rain. Their activity together is him reading and her looking, signaling the loss or failure of love and communication.
The cat to her is the symbol of her desperation to have a child – someone to care for. Her husband is not interested in her want or need to have a child but she does not – in any way - keep her desire under wraps. Over and over again she tells him what she wants but he does not listen but clings rather desperately to his book that maybe to him, seems the only way to not have to listen to his wife’s demands. So, in conclusion, the theme of this story is, as before mentioned, the loss or failure of love.
In comparison to Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants”, “Cat In The Rain” seems to be a prelude. That is to say that “Hills…” could be argued to be the sequel. We have traveled on to Spain somewhere between Madrid and Barcelona. Again we meet an American couple. This time around the man (nameless) is the aggressor and has the control. Compared to George there seems not to be no other difference between the two than natural development. The woman, Jig, could very well be the wife from “Cat…”. Jig is naive, a dreamer and a little girl. The wife in “Cat…” was actually referred to as a girl – only not when she was with her husband, then she was the wife.
The man is older than Jig and thereby corroborates that “Hills…” could be the sequel to “Cat…” keeping the argumentation of the above in mind. Both are indecisive and impatient. Something has to happen and it appears it has to happen to the wife. Whereas the husband in “Cat…” seemed utterly uninterested in his wife, the man’s interest in Jig is very much present, however his interest seems to be for his own gain. He keeps telling her that “you don’t have to do it” and “it’s perfectly simple” – he is manipulating her to do something she obviously do not want to do.
I think it is no coincidence that the woman in “Cat…” is nameless and the man in “Hills…” is nameless. I think the couples in the two stories are one and the same couple. Again the two stories are about having someone to care for – in “Cat…” she wants to have a baby, and in “Hills…” I think her wish is about to come true. Jig is pregnant, but the man (George?) does not seem at all excited and pleas with her in this story to have an abortion. He tells her “it’s a simple operation” but that she should not do it if she does not want to. It is not hard to see that she does want to have the baby, and if you believe the two women are actually the same, you can surely understand why she wants her long-desired wish to come true. The themes in the two stories are also close to being the same – the lack of love and the lack of communication. So – are the two stories an ‘evolutionary tale’ about a couple? I do not doubt it.
