The new criticism theory holds that "various images in literary works interact with each other in an organic form to create and convey meaning". As the "cat" contains the main image of the work and its rich connotation and its interaction with the main image of the novel form of the novel the inner structure and form of a "circle". The image of "cat" appears at the beginning of the novel, with the reader looking at a kitten "crouching in the green table" with the eyes of the "American wife". She rushed into the rain to save the cat who was trapped by the heavy rain. But when she came to the table, the cat disappeared. After that, the limited plot of the novel is centered around a cat that is only wanted. In the novel, the cat in the rain is not just an animal, it is a weak, helpless, waiting for salvation. And this coincides with the image of women in the patriarchal society for thousands of years. The bible, one of the sources of western culture, describes the origin of man. God created the first man Adam, a man, and the woman eve is a rib in Adam's body. Eve is the temptation of the devil by a snake eat first after wisdom had bewitched Adam ate the forbidden fruit, thus human against the will of god banished from the garden of Eden to human forever "suffering" tour, which is the so-called "original sin".
Therefore, the beginning of mankind is a man, and the source of sin is woman, therefore, women are regarded as the object of salvation in essence. In "cats in the rain", Hemingway takes a male, or even a god, view of the woman and the cat as two references. The cat is trapped in the rain and the American wife is trapped in marriage and self. To a certain extent, the cat in the novel, shivering in the rain, is the woman herself, or the one who makes the woman miss and feel so much love. The "American wife" in the novel is not named, but the husband is called George, which makes the image of the woman more imagistic. In a broader sense, the wind and rain the kitten is the middle of the twentieth century, after several times feminism women facing dilemma: feminist movement for women obtained the certain power, the new women "had a French short hair and wear a suit pants, like a man smoking, drinking, chatting loudly in the street... However, like the "American wife" in the novel, in the deep heart of women, these women's external liberation does not bring happiness and solutions to women. In the novel "the cat in the rain", Hemingway to its keen social insight, accurate with few words convey the "new woman" the plight of women return to room after find cats may not we can't forget and express themselves repeatedly has a the cat, she picked up a mirror to the left and pictures to the husband said, "I want to keep long hair... The way I look now really turns me off. I'm tired of looking like a boy."
So she continued to look into the mirror and imagined her long hair. In addition, the "American wife" in the novel does not come from the outside but from itself, which makes it more and more sad. The struggle, after the change, still wants to go back to the traditional woman's shell, to find the lost kitten in the storm. However, at the end of the novel cat this image concrete representation, only from restaurant owners is a big and beautiful spotted cat it brings to the "American wife" is amazed, as experienced all this after the baptism of women's rights and traditional woman again, more prominence and happiness does not come.
