Reading Hemingway with George Saunders Part 6

I’m working through George Saunders Story Club “bit at a time” short story readings, this post is my notes on reading the final part six of the story below, see original post from George here.

CAT IN THE RAIN (Part 6)  

Someone knocked at the door.

“Avanti,” George said. He looked up from his book.

In the doorway stood the maid. She held a big tortoise-shell cat pressed tight against her and swung down against her body.

“Excuse me,” she said, “the padrone asked me to bring this for the Signora.”

The End.

Reader questions to consider:

1. Why this is a better ending than the truncated version (after part 5)?

2. What else does the ending give us?

3. A challenge: make the case for it mattering, which cat it is at the end. (Extra credit).

Finally she gets a cat! Throughout the story the American wife/wife/American girl/girl/she/his wife/Signora⁠1 has wanted a cat, to rescue for pets, to call kitty and let sleep on her lap.  And finally someone has brought her one.  Of course its the maid and the direction of the hotel owner/hotel keeper/padrone, he has been the only character to see she is in need of something, that she is searching for something she wants.  If the story had ended after part 5, the wife would have been left where she was in the beginning, only staring out into the dark instead of the rainy day, but she would have gained nothing in the physical world.

She would have had some insight into why she felt restless, why she so wanted the kitty in the rain, but would still be there in the same place feeling the same way, if not more so.  But with this short ending, she gets a cat2,⁠ served by the maid, seen and cared for by the padrone, and indifferently ignored by her husband George.  And we the reader get to finally see a cat, fully described and held in a precarious position, further emphasizing that the cat and the woman are in a similar situation.

This short ending really does land the remaining bowling pins in the air.  We understand the wife now, why she has been thinking and doing and saying the things she has throughout the story, we see why she is wanting so many things, anything, to give her something to hold on to, something to ground her in this life, this marriage.  All the other characters in the story have showed us who she is through their reactions to her actions.  This is a key thing I think, Hemingway could have just told us in first person her thoughts and what she was struggling with, but instead he had her act throughout the story so her feelings were exposed in other characters reactions to her, and in turn her reactions to them.

I think this ending also gives us a resolution, or future path of action, for the wife.  She needs to have someone in her life who sees her, who sees when she needs something more, and is able to give it to her at least in some small way.  She needs a padrone like partner who takes her deadly serious and makes her feel important even when she feels small.  If she had that, if George was that person, she wouldn’t have so many trivial or unobtainable things, she would have what she needs: attention and agency.