The tone of “The Cat in the Rain” is, for the most part, disaffected and melancholic. The narrator shifts between objectively reporting on facts (“George was on the bed, reading,” “George was reading again,” etc.) and moving closer to the perspective of George’s lonely wife. The following passage captures the narrator’s alienated tone and how it shifts slightly when sharing the inner experience of the wife:
They went back along the gravel path and passed in the door. The maid stayed outside to close the umbrella. As the American girl passed the office, the padrone bowed from his desk. Something felt very small and tight inside the girl. The padrone made her feel very small and at the same time really important. She had a momentary feeling of being of supreme importance. She went on up the stairs.
The first three sentences of this passage lack any adjectives or rich descriptions, contributing to the narrator’s overall depressive tone. Then a subtle shift happens—suddenly the wife feels something and, for a brief moment, the tone changes. There is a moment of hope as the woman has “a momentary feeling of being of supreme importance.” Then the tone abruptly shifts back with the final clipped sentence, “She went on up the stairs.” It becomes apparent through this subtle tonal shift (from dissatisfied to hopeful to dissatisfied again) that whatever moments of hope or joy the wife experiences are brief and largely inconsequential.
