Cat in the Rain is one of the few short stories that reflect women's consciousness. The story is simple, the language is concise and incisive, and it is narrated in the third person. In this novel, the heroine has no name, but the author gave her different titles in different situations. From the perspective of appellation, this paper analyzes the heroine's desire and awakening of subject consciousness in a patriarchal society. It perfectly embodies Hemingway's simple narrative style and implicit stylistic features.
The two protagonists in the narrative process of the novel never have specific names, only know that they are an American couple. The appearance of such non-specific characters further enhances the abstract meaning of artistic images. So, what is the specific environment in which the characters exist? Hemingway's arrangement is also very clever. The novel only points to Italy, and there are no specific places, such as Italy, where there are so many places of interest and tourists. This environment has also been symbolized and abstracted: seashore, palm trees and monuments constitute a collection of nature and history, which is the basic place for human activities. That short life began like this.
Seeing the "cat in the rain" outside the window, the American wife has a series of strong wishes: protect it, or own it, or love it, or pity it, or place unspeakable feelings on it ... In short, the fate of the cat and its situation have made her feel a profound voice. From the novel, we can understand this wife's position in the family as follows: she is a gentle, virtuous and naive girl who listens to her husband, but under the domination of the man-centered concept, her husband's attitude towards her is indifferent. She exists when her husband needs her; When her husband doesn't need her, she is just an "existing thing" for her husband. She has no career of her own. She has her husband's favorite hairstyle. She felt as delicate and touching as a cat, so she gave birth to an unspeakable sympathy for it. In a deeper sense, it should be in the same boat. She tried to help the cat get rid of the passive and fearful situation. The heroine has at least two motives: one is narcissism and masturbation. She protects the cat, that is, she consciously protects herself. She saved herself by "saving the cat" (emotional projection). The second is the display of self-strength. She is eager to prove her role by protecting this cat-the power that she can decide another thing, which is a heroic feeling. She is eager to change her situation, appearance, hairstyle, position in the family and relationship with her husband. In short, she wants to renew herself.
But this change is difficult. She went out to look for the cat in the rain, but the cat disappeared, so she went home disappointed. She didn't get the cat she wanted. The cat may still be swimming in the rain, and the cat's condition has not changed, so all her efforts have vanished invisibly. A cat that disappeared in the rain triggered and mobilized all the life potential of this woman's self-imagination, self-expression, self-change and self-creation. From a cat's idea of changing herself and subverting her present life: She told her husband that she wanted to keep her hair long and comb it into a tangible bun, but her husband liked her, that is, "like the way it is now" and didn't need any change at all. Her tone also had the initial inquiry-"Don't you think it's a good idea for me to have long hair?" Later, it became a series of imperative sentences with strong subjective consciousness-"I want to ...". 1 1 a "Yao" appears in the text one after another, expressing his wife's strong emotional desire and psychological appeal. She wants to change her hairstyle, a cat, a candlelight dinner, many new clothes and … all of which her husband failed to satisfy her and will not satisfy her immediately. Her husband's response to her wish was "shut up". A husband defines his wife's behavior by his hegemonic position. In the end, the wife didn't "change" successfully. She is still an accessory of her husband in the family. She still has no real right to freedom and is still subject to her husband. Her words are also pale and powerless under the hegemony of men's words.
But after all, my wife is trying to change. The reason for this change is a cat in the rain. She met the hotel owner while looking for the cat. When she left the room, she saw the owner of the hotel. The Italian old man stood behind his desk and bowed to her. He asked someone to send her an umbrella. He showed a kind of respect and concern, which made his wife feel herself and "valued": "The hotel owner made her feel a faint and important feeling." This is something she doesn't feel when she gets along with her husband at home. Therefore, she likes this feeling, so she likes him:
..... This lady likes the shopkeeper. She likes his serious attitude when accepting any complaints; She likes his service etiquette; She likes his good professional pride. She likes his vicissitudes of face and big hands. Her position in the family and her husband's attitude towards her made her subconsciously have an impulse to betray. Especially when she met the hotel owner who respected and took care of her-a cultural symbol of a mature man, women's self-awareness temporarily returned or was established. Finally, the hotel owner gave her a cat. This is a meaningful ending. The cat that the heroine longed for appeared, but the novel particularly emphasized that the maid was holding "a big cat with tortoise shell pattern". Is it the previous Cat in the Rain? It became an unsolved case.