StylisticPresentationof“CatintheRain”

【Abstract】“Cat in the Rain” is Hemingways short story. In this thesis， stylistic knowledge will be used in the analysis of its form and content. Through analysis， we can see the perfect union of form and content in this story.

【Key words】Hemingway； stylistics； Cat in the Rain

PART ONE

INTRODUCTION

Ernest Miller Hemingway is an American novelist who relates a story in the form of straight journalism. In this paper， the stylistic features of “Cat in the Rain” will be examined. This short story in Ernest Hemingways In Our Time was written in 1925. It is one of his representative short stories that can present his unique writing style.

PART TWO

STYLISTIC FEATURES

1. The Third Person Point of View

The story mainly uses the third person limited point of view which acts as a camera and reports the events objectively while there are four times of shifts of perspective focalization in the story.

The first shift occurs when the narrator uses （“her” husband）. The second occurs when she is going to find the cat： “The cat would be around to the right. Perhaps she could go along under the eaves.”（Hemingway 24）. The third shift presents as the inner feeling of the heroine. “Something felt very small and tight inside the girl.”（26） Only from her perspective can the subtle feelings be observed. The last shift happens when George describes “a big tortoise-shell”， which is from the perspective of the husband.

These shifts of focalization act as the supplement of the third person narrative could make the reader understand better the needs and emotions of the characters.

2. Language Features

2.1 Lexical Features

The most striking lexical features are the concise nominal and verbal structure. “The preponderance of the definite article ‘The occurs twenty-seven times in the relatively short paragraph” （Zeng 86）. It occurs， too， in nominal groups where there is little between the definite article and norm. For example， “The motor-cars were gone from the square by the war-monument”（22） in which “the motor-cars”， “the square” and “the war-monument” are all concise nominal groups.

Besides， verbs are employed with little modified adverbial ingredients. “The wife went downstairs and the hotel owner stood up and bowed to her as she passed the office”（22）. The description of action is a mechanized and monotonous one from which the reader can see what is truly happening there.

2.2 Syntactic Features

“There are only 120 sentences in the story and the average length is with 10 words”（Chen 122）. The sentence structure mainly composed of nouns and verbs with the conjunction of “and” which occurs 34 times and the colloquial forms of dialogue， all of which contribute to the simple， straightforward and modest style.

2.3 Textual Features

The writer employs three referential chains of “the cat”， “the heroine” and “the husband” to unite the story. Meanwhile five symmetrically scenes as “the hotel room”， “the passage through the lobby”， “outdoors in the rain”， “return through the lobby”， and “back in the hotel room” are arranged to make the story a symmetrical whole.

3. Rhetorical Devices

Many rhetorical devices are used to contribute to its greatness. Symbols and Repetition will be analyzed here. The cat is a symbol of sexual passion， freedom and all the positive things. Besides， the public garden， the war monument， spring and new clothes etc. can all be symbolic. As for repetition， the repetition of “she liked him； she liked the way...；she liked his dignity...”in which “she liked” appears for seven times， which serves to emphasize the wifes affection for the hotel-keeper as well as her dissatisfaction with her present life. Repetition here is another kind of conciseness for we can sense deeply the barren and lethargic life of the heroine from these utterances.

PART THREE

CONCLUSION

Hemingway is a great writer and the story “Cat in the Rain”， short as it is， it has many stylistic features. My paper mainly examines from the aspects of the point of view， language features and the rhetorical devices. All these features contribute to its theme， characterization and the hidden seven-eights of the story.

The stylistic analysis can help us understand better the writers style and the literary works as well.

References：

[1]Hemingway，E.Selected Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway[M].Trans.Qing Gui，Li Lifeng，Liu Junwu，Foreign Language Press，Beijing，2013.

[2]陳平.基于定量研究的海明威《雨中的貓》的前景化分析[J].文學界（理論版），2012，06：121-122.

[3]曾傳芳.論海明威《雨中貓》的語言特色[J].四川外語學院學報，2001，04：86-89.

作者簡介：郭珍珍（1990-），女，漢族，河北邯鄲人，現就讀于西安外國語大學研究生部2014級英語語言文學。學歷：碩士研究生。