Cat in the Rain

Doors frequently represent transitions or boundaries, and Hemingway includes three doors in this very short story. The first is the door to the café on the square. It’s open, and the waiter stands in the doorway, watching the rain and waiting for customers. The second door is the door to the hotel. The wife opens it and, like the waiter, watches the rain from the doorway; she and the maid exit through the door to look for the cat and reenter after being unable to find it. The third door is the door to the couple’s hotel room. The wife opens the door to enter the room after the search for the cat. It closes again, and finally the maid opens it after the husband tells her (in Italian) to enter. The waiter stands in an open door, and twice, the wife opens a door. George, lying on the bed, doesn’t open a door himself but directs the maid to open it herself when she arrives with the cat. The waiter is hoping for customers to walk through his door but knows that given the weather, they likely will not. The wife goes through her own door and the door to the hotel (with the maid), and she opens both herself. George, on the other hand, stays behind a closed door and doesn’t open it himself even when someone knocks. Hemingway’s use of doors implies that the wife is open to transitions and has both the desire and agency to move through doors; George, though, views doors as a boundary and is content to stay isolated behind them, not even opening a door when someone knocks.