Cat in the Rain中女性形象探究

On Hemingway's Feminist

Consciousness from

Cat in the Rain

1. Criticism

of Hemingway’ s

works’

smearing

It is known that Hemingway has an important position in the literary history, his

contribution

to

American

literature

is

an

indisputable

r,

the

image

of

Hemingway's

female

critics

has

been

aroused

heated

arguments,

and

sometimes

his

attitudes to women are the focus in the critic world.

A considerable number of critics thinks that Hemingway was a male chauvinist,

which leads to the result that his work is more of a

discrimination

against

women.

After

the

rise

of

feminism,

Hemingway's

female

characters

suffered

more

blame

than

praise.

Some

activists

have

not

been

satisfied

with the so-called macho and dismissed it as

Some

critics

tend

to

excavate

materials

from

the

private

life

of

Ernest

Hemingway, interpreting their work, analyzing the figures. This seems quite natural to

come to the conclusion of Hemingway’s being hatred of women. He has re

peatedly

accused his mother as

love, this is indeed an insult to be added. He has not a happy marriage relationship.

Hemingway

had

attacked

Fitzgerald’s

wife

Zelda

that

he

was

jealous

Fitzgerald’s

talents to interfere his writing process. This is also listed as an example of his hostility

toward women. Won him the Nobel Prize in Literature,

obviously

a

work

concerning

about

the

world

of

men

-

the

book

actually

has

no

female role. His male characters owned

while female characters often seem to be as a foil or the opposite existence. Therefore,

Edmund Wilson ,as the representative of part of the critics, pointed out the people in

Hemingway’s works as

2.

Hemingway’s women image tend to feminist

Robert. Keluser and other critics took Albright. Anshly, Maria and other female

characters as

the basis that: Hemingway is

a feminist writer. His work has a strong

1

feminist

tendencies.

Many

female

characters

should

not

have

been

cast

aside,

but

should be sympathetic to, even admirable. This view has been affirmation for the first

time to the repeatedly ignored or disparaged female characters of Hemingway's and

certainly

refreshes,

and

it

has

its

unique

feature.

In

his

novels,

there

is

not

lack

of

feminist consciousness of Hemingway, and several of them were launched from the

female

consciousness.

Hemingway

also

shows

his

own

feelings

in

shaping

their

women characters on different occasions at different times.

Rebellious

Image

of

Women

in

Hemingway’

s

Work

—

Cat in the Rain

“Cat in the Rain” talks about a story of

a woman who stays in a hotel with her

husband, when she looks outside of the window to lighten her dull, she sees a cat in

the

rain.

The

woman

shows

her

sympathy

to

that

cat

and

desires

to

rescue

it.

She

expresses her thought to her husband who was reading on the bed, actually he reads

from the beginning to the end without considering his wife's idea. Then she plans to

catch the cat herself, at that time, the owner of the hotel meets the woman, she said

her idea to the boss after the cat was run away . Ant the end of the story, the woman

was

complain

about

the

cat

to

her

husband,

a

servant

send

a

big

tortoiseshell

cat

different from the cat in the rain.

There

were

only

near

2000

words

in

this

novel,

and

it

exists

through

the

American

wife's

perspective.

The

American

wife

and

her

husband's

relationship

actually is not very harmony. The man is always reading on the bed without response

to his wife warmly, which leads her to look out side the window. The man is apathy to

his wife as they live in that age, which the woman have to obey to the man totally.

The whole society is male-dominated, but the women at that time can't bear them and

they just want to be independent from the men, the women in “Cat in the Rain” is a

represent of the individual women. Hemingway expresses his ideas of women protest

the patriarchal traditions.

There are only 7 main image in this short novel, the American couple, the cat, the

rain,

the

servant

and

the

hotel

owner.

In

western

culture,

the

cat

has

a

close

relationship of metaphor with women. The cat is an important clue that runs through

this novel, from the American wife finds the cat in the rain to she express she want to

get

that

cat,

then the hotel

owner sends

a a big tortoiseshell cat

to

her, the cat

also

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