In an example of situational irony, the wife makes it clear at the start of the story that she wants to find the cat in order to save it from the rain (a selfless act), only to later admit that she wanted the cat due to her own longing for companionship.
Near the beginning of the story, the narrator and wife together communicate that she is inspired to go find the cat in order to help it stay dry during the storm:
The American wife stood at the window looking out. Outside right under their window a cat was crouched under one of the dripping green tables. The cat was trying to make herself so compact that she would not be dripped on.
“I’m going down and get that kitty,” the American wife said […]. “The poor kitty out trying to keep dry under a table.”
Here, the wife decides she will “go down and get that kitty” who is “trying to keep dry” after seeing how the cat was failing to keep itself from being rained on. Ironically, when she finds that the cat is not in the spot where she saw it, she does not celebrate that the cat may have found a better hiding spot, but instead becomes sulky and frustrated, telling the maid, “Oh, I wanted it so much. I wanted a kitty.” Just a few lines later, she repeats this to her husband George, saying, “I wanted it so much […] I don’t know why I wanted it so much. I wanted that poor kitty.”
The wife’s disappointment highlights for readers how she was transferring her desire for connection with her husband (or anyone) onto the cat. While she initially framed her desire to find the cat as an act of service, it becomes clear by the end that she wanted the cat due to her own loneliness.
In the opening paragraph of “The Cat in the Rain,” the narrator describes the beauty of the hotel grounds on a sunny day, only to immediately pivot to describing the rainy gloom of the day in which the story is set—a subtle example of situational irony:
In the good weather there was always an artist with his easel. Artists liked the way the palms grew and the bright colors of the hotels facing the gardens and the sea […]. It was raining. The rain dripped from the palm trees.
Here, the narrator makes it seem as if this story will include warm, hopeful elements like “good weather” and artists joyfully capturing on canvas “the way the palms grew and the bright colors of the hotels facing the gardens and the sea.” Instead, later in the same paragraph, the sun has been replaced with rain “dripp[ing]” from the palm trees that were once beautiful and bright.
In a story as short as this one, every word matters. In other words, the narrator’s ironic juxtaposition of how things could be (on a sunny day) versus how they actually are (on a rainy day), establishes that this story will be exploring themes related to longing and disappointment. There is an implication here that the relationship between the two main characters—George and his wife—might have similarly once been sunny and bright and that now, as the rain pours down and they sit far apart in their hotel room, they find themselves lonely and disappointed with what their relationship has become.
