Cat in the Rain: The Cat's Symbolism and Identity

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He leaves her drowning in an avalanche of apathy and lack of affection. When she tells him of all the things she desires, he merely tells her to "shut up." She also wants the cat so that she can hold it on her lap and pet it as it purrs. She wants someone to stroke her, perhaps physically as well as emotionally. She also feels unwomanly, like a boy with her short hair. She is starved for the physical and emotional attention that the husband should be giving to her. When the cat is finally brought in from the rain, it is the hotel-keeper that has responded to her needs, rather than her husband. The man who had caused in her "a momentary feeling of supreme importance" in whom she admired "the way he wanted to serve her," has brought both the literal and symbolic cats in from the rain. He has provided the woman with the attention that she is not receiving from her husband, at least in an emotional sense. The maid, however, holds the "cat pressed tight against her and swung down against ...

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