![]() ![]() We want what we can’t have, of course: Jacques Lacan’s work on desire argues as much, and in English the word ‘want’ denotes both a desire and a lack (i.e., you want an ice cream but if you fall short of some standard you are said to have been found wanting). In other words, we might analyse or interpret the cat as a site of desire for the wife: the cat represents desire itself, all her wants, becoming a tangible, physical manifestation of her desire. She, too, wants to escape the rain, as her reference to spring (which hasn’t yet arrived) towards the end of the story demonstrates. ![]() The cat in the rain is not just a cat: she clearly symbolises something more to the wife, who wishes to rescue her from the rain and, in doing so, rescue a part of herself. Hemingway’s stories often seem direct and matter-of-fact, as though they simply mean whatever they say, but there is, in fact, symbolic resonance to many of the ordinary and everyday details he builds his stories around.
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