Comparison of Hemingway's Hills Like White Elephants and Cat In The Rain

Comparison of Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants" and "Cat In The Rain"

"Cat In The Rain" is set in an Italian hotel where we meet an American

couple. Outside a cat is trapped in the rain, and the wife wants to

save it. When she goes to get it, it is gone but the maid later brings

her one.

The point of view in the story is a third person narrator, but the

perspective changes going from the wife to the husband and an

objective narrator who tells it like it is. The story is told

retrospectively in the past tense. The narrator is omniscient - that

is 'he' knows all but judges nothing. On the first page it seems it is

the waiter objectively telling us what is going on whereas the second

page is told by the wife and the last paragraphs of the third and

fourth [and last] page in our story is told to us by George (the

husband).

In his composition of "Cat In The Rain", Hemingway frees the story

from narrative interpretation and leaves it up to us, his readers, to

interpret what is going on. The story seems strangely ambiguous in its

narrative nature. This is apparently due to the objective narration

and the no-judging attitude in it's style.

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 natu...

... middle of paper ...

... 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.