Hemingway’s writing style in “The Cat in the Rain” is extremely minimalist. Not only is the story only four pages long, but the sentences themselves are short and curt, lacking adjectives, adverbs, and imagery. This comes across in the opening paragraph of the story, which contains sentences like, “Their room was on the second floor facing the sea,” “It was raining,” and “Water stood in pools on the gravel paths.” Rather than waxing poetic about what the rain looked like as it fell or sharing insights into how this rainy day felt to the two main characters sitting in their hotel room, Hemingway simply describes what the characters “see.”
This is intentional on Hemingway’s part. As a modernist short story, “The Cat in the Rain” seeks to capture the alienation experienced by people in the 20th century. His blunt, disaffected narration is meant to mimic the depressive and lonely feelings of his characters. The narrator does not use flowery or romantic language because the characters do not view the world in this way.
The final lines of the story capture the melancholy that comes through in Hemingway’s minimalist style even when a seemingly joyful event takes place:
Someone knocked at the door.
“Avanti,” George said. He looked up from his book.
In the doorway stood the maid. She held a big tortoise-shell cat pressed tight against her and swung down against her body.
“Excuse me,” she said, “the padrone asked me to bring this for the Signora.”
Again, Hemingway’s language is very literal and curt here—“Someone knocked at the door,” “He looked up from his book,” etc. And yet, this is the climax of the story, as the wife finally gets what she wants most—a cat who can offer her warmth and companionship. Because the writing style doesn’t change (and because Hemingway doesn’t grant readers a look at how the wife responds after the big reveal), readers leave the story dissatisfied. This lack of closure is characteristic of Hemingway’s style—like his characters, his readers also end up disappointed and craving more than what they have been given.
