Cat in the Rain - A couple takes

FL200

Yesterday we carried out a "close reading" of "Cat in the Rain". This type of approach to literature is second nature now to many readers, yet it has a clear theoretical origin. What we did was to follow the central tenet of a critical approach called "New Criticism":

New Criticism (1930s–1960s): Coined in John Crowe Ransom’s The New Criticism (1941), this approach discourages the use of history and biography in interpreting a literary work. Instead, it encourages readers to discover the meaning of a work through a detailed analysis of the text itself. This approach was popular in the middle of the 20th century, especially in the United States, but has since fallen out of favor.

Note that New Criticism has "fallen out of favor" not because scholars do not perform "close readings" anymore, but rather because that kind of reading has become second nature. What has changed is that close readings are now seen by many as a first step in approaching a text. Close readings lead to enhanced critical readings that presume further theorizing and the use or deployment of additional theoretical aproaches.

Here is a one page analysis of the story. It comes to us from Germany: http://www.gs.cidsnet.de/englisch-online/Leistungskurs2/hemingway3.htm

• Note what elements are left out by this reader.
• Note what shifts in the chronology of the story the reader makes to solidify his/her views.
• Note the internal contradictions in this reader's take on the story.

The reader, however, highlights two important aspects:

• Children would want to "protect" a cat from the rain, whereas adults know cats can take care of themselves.

This is interesting given how everyone else is so concerned that George's American wife/girl does not get wet. Yesterday, as you recall, we wondered whether she is identifying with the cat: "The cat was trying to make herself so compact that she would not be dripped on. (...) ‘No, I’ll get it. The poor kitty out trying to keep dry under a table’" (1, ln. 14-15; 21).

SPARKNOTES offers this summary of the story:

Only two Americans are in the hotel. Their room faces the sea, a public garden, and a war monument. Many Italians come from far away to see the monument. That day, it is raining, and the American wife is looking out the window. She sees a cat under a table that is trying to keep dry. She tells her husband that she is going to get it. He tells her not to get wet. Downstairs, she is greeted by the hotel operator, whose seriousness and willingness to please she adores. When she goes outside, he sends a maid after her with an umbrella. She does not find the cat. She goes back upstairs feeling sad. She asks her husband if she should grow her hair out. He says that he likes it the way that it is. She decides that she wants a bun at the back of her neck, and a cat to stroke, and a table with her own silver, and some new clothing. He tells her to shut up and to find a book to read. She says that she still wants a cat. Just then, someone knocks at the door. It is the maid. She has brought up a cat, at the request of the hotel operator.

• Note how terse and minimalistic the summary is.
• Note how the story is told in the present tense. This should always be done in talking or writing about fiction. Stories, poems, plays, etc. always happen, as it were, in the present. That is, they are always "happening".
• Note what points the reader takes for granted in offering this summary.
  
• Note differences in the language chosen to summarize the story in comparison with the language of the text itself.

The take on the story offered by SPARKNOTES is strikingly different from what we considered yesterday:

The American wife expresses a desire for many things in this story. She tells her husband that if she cannot have any fun, then she might as well have things that she wants. In other words, this desire for material goods comes from an inability to acquire intangible goods such as fun and affection. This lack of intimacy is not entirely her husband's fault, of course. She also ignores his compliments.

This American way, desiring material objects and becoming bored, is contrasted with an Italian way of vacationing. The Italians arrive in the same location to see the war memorial and honor the war dead. They are more involved in the ideas of the place than in owning things from it. In addition, it is a more communal way of living, to honor the sacrifices of others, rather than to stay inside and read.

Their view appears more weighted towards Marxist and Psychoanalytical approaches.

You can find many other positions regarding this text online. As you know, there are sites that offer students the chance to read or use the ideas and or written work of other people. This is plagiarism and it is icky. However, just as a tool for the workshop it is interesting to look at a least one of them:

This is an excerpt from the paper...

From bulls to marlins, when Hemingway uses animals in his fiction they are purposefully used to create richer characterization for his human characters. For example, in The Old Man and the Sea, the Marlin is used as an almost worthy antagonist to Santiago and Santiago even admits there is not much difference between him and his fish.

In Cat In The Rain, the animal is a cat and it is significant enough to the story and characters that it rates a mention in the title of this short story. The cat has a twofold meaning to the story and the American female traveling with her husband. First, the cat symbolizes how human beings are often faced with larger, more hostile forces than they can contend with on their own. Second, the cat symbolizes the situation of the woman in her relationship. The woman seeks love, comfort, companionship and nurturing from her husband which she does not receive. She, therefore, like the cat "was trying to make herself so compact that she would not be dripped on" (Hemingway 167).

The cat also has a third relevance to the story and that is that it acts as a surrogate child for the women. She wants "to have a kitty to sit on my lap and purr when I stroke her" (Hemingway 169). She wants this as much as she yearns for long hair, i.e., some unique aspect to her identity which a child might serve for her, "I want to pull my hair back tight and smooth and make a big knot at the back that I can feel" (Hemingway...

• Can you find problems with the selective explanation of the cat as a "symbol" in this paper?
• Is the cat facing "larger, more hostile forces" than it can cope with?
  
• Is the cat seeking "love, comfort, companionship and nurturing" from the American wife/girl?
• The sexual interpretation of the cat as "symbol" is absent from this paper. Should it be there? How? How would it affect the argument as presented above?
  
• Can you find problems with the way in which the writer expresses his/her ideas?

The questions I am posing here should help you understand the kind of treatment that I give your writing when I read your papers. They should help you be ready to cover all your bases as you prepare to come up with papers, titles, and the all important theses the vertebrate them.