Cat in the Rain Interpretation Essay Example for Free

Cat in the Rain Interpretation Essay Topic: The symbol â€Å"cat† in â€Å"Cat in the rain† (Ernest Hemingway) In many of his stories, Ernest Hemingway used symbols to express the profound meaning of those stories. In â€Å"Cat in the rain†, the poor kitty is the main symbol since it expresses much about the theme of the story. In my opinion, the cat symbolizes three things such as a baby, the couple’s relationship and the wife herself. Initially, the cat is symbolic of a baby. The first reason is the cats here stands for something little and vulnerable which is like a baby. Moreover, when it â€Å"was crouched under one of the dripping green tables†, it appears to be so pitiful, which evokes the wife’ caring and protective instinct of a mother. She feels sorry for it because â€Å"It isn’t any fun to be a poor kitty out in the rain†. She calls it â€Å"she† like it is a human. In addition, although the cat is gone, she still wants to have the cat â€Å"sit on my lap and purr when I stroke her†. In short, the wife sympathizes with the cat and wants to treat it lovingly, which is very mother like. Therefore, a baby is the first thing the cat symbolizes. Next, the cat is also a symbol of the couple’s marriage. The little cat silvering in the rain stands for the unstable marriage of the couple. When the wife sees that poor kitty, she immediately goes to save it. She is willing to go through the rain, which signifies the struggles obstructing her. At the end, she cannot have the cat, in other words, cannot save her deteriorating marriage. In contrasts to the wife’s eagerness, her husband seems to be so indifferent since he is reading all the time:†the husband went on reading†, â€Å"George was on the bed, reading†, â€Å"he was reading again†, â€Å"he was reading again†. Although he does propose to go get the cat, it is just a half-hearted offer. It is only the wife who wants to save the relationship, and without the help of her husband, it cannot be saved. In brief, the marriage of the couple is the next thing that the cat is symbolic of. Last but not least, it is the wife herself that is the most important meaning of the cat. When the cat is first described, it is called â€Å"she†, which is intentionally link the cat and the American girl. She is also nameless like a little poor cat lacking attention from other people. The husband says that he will get the cat but later he does nothing, which is like the way he tries to care about his wife but does not satisfy her needs. Therefore, when the wife sees the cat in the rain, she sympathizes with it, she wants it to sit on her lap and stroke it. It is also her inner desire to have someone treat her lovingly like that. In a nutshell, the wife is the last and clearest meaning of the cat in the rain. The story â€Å"Cat in the rain† may seem to be uncomplicated; however, it has much deeper meanings which are partly expressed through the symbol â€Å"cat†. This symbol, which is interpreted to symbolize three things, plays an important role in helping the readers to better understand the theme of the story.

Tropical Areas in Florida Essay -- Tropics

The Trouble with Tropics Florida, like many tropical areas, has two seasons: the wet season and the dry season. During the wet season (June through October), water is plentiful, lawns grow green, farmers grow their crops and kids wakeboard in the park. But, of course, flooding is a problem. In the dry season (seven months: November through May), grass turns as brown as a desert bush. The source of Florida’s water is the Lake Toho/Kissimmee River/Lake Okeechobee system, and the level of the lake system rises and falls between the seasons. At low levels during the dry season, Florida residents must be mindful to conserve water and animals are left to fend for themselves. Water resources have the potential to be unsustainable without management. Florida water resources fluctuate, so life can be difficult. The South Florida Water Management District was created to maintain sustainability of Florida water resources. Today, tourists come to visit the beautiful tropical climate of Florida’s beaches, wildlife, and palm trees. South Florida wasn’t always so pristine. Florida used to be a much soggier swampland. Mosquitoes were so plentiful, that some early pioneers of the area joked that they must be the state bird. Because of Florida’s flat geography, rainfall was the determinant factor in every facet of South Florida’s environment.1 After a large rain, water would stand in floodplains and flow from river to river like water in an ice tray without canals or dams to control the flow of storm waters. Standing water would remain for weeks or months leaving disease and water damage behind.1 During the dry season, farming became difficult. Droughts were common and crops and cattle would thirst without a reliable source of ... ....dep.state.fl.us/coastal/habitats/coral.htm. 6. Facility and Infrastructure Location Index Map. May 2002. South Florida Water Management District. http://www.sfwmd.gov/images/pdfs/facility_map_overview.pdf. 7. Wetland Wildlife. 8 Dec. 2004. University of Florida. http://wetlandextension.ifas.ufl.edu/wildlife.htm. 8. Land Management Annual Report. 2003. South Florida Water Management District. http://www.sfwmd.gov/org/clm/lsd/images/pdfs/lsd_ar03.pdf. 9. Environmental Restoration Efforts. South Florida Water Management District. http://www.sfwmd.gov/org/wrp/env_rest_efforts.html#lakeo. 10. Central and Southern Florida Project Comprehensive Review Study (Restudy) Update and Background. July 1999. http://www.evergladesplan.org/docs/backgd.pdf. 11. ACCELER8 Everglades Now. South Florida Water Management District. http://www.evergladesnow.org/a8_overview.shtml.

Issues with Social Development in Adults

In my research on issues of social development in adults, I found change and consistency in social participation plays a key role in early adulthood. I felt the need to choose and touch on this topic because I have the tendency to be a social butterfly and I also lost a dear friend that committed suicide from social isolation. I chose this article because after reading it I felt as if the information was solid and backed up with surveys and facts. I also felt as if the topic was thoroughly examined and the article gave a lot of helpful information about this particular issue with social development in adults. Social interactions and activities play a key role in the physical health and well being in adulthood. It is healthy and fun to be around friends, loved ones, and even relationship partners. Making plans, going out, and being social gives one the since of self worth. Further more, the lack of desire and absence of social contact and participation can cause one, such as in the incident of my friend, to become depressed, self-isolated, and have suicidal thoughts and/or even commit suicide. In the event that I would need to write a research paper on this topic, I would use this article. I would use the article because it has a lot of information about the topic and has many different details and survey information. This would all help my research and provide me with information to include in my paper. The authors, Harry Reis and Yi-Cheng Lin, research was to determine if age-related changes in social relationships and to see if interaction patterns would stay the same from college years to adult- hood. They researched a variety of different things like opposite-sex socializing, intimacy and satisfaction in adulthood, and implications for social development during early adulthood.

The Bad Old Days - Porridge

In peasant cottages, there was no kitchen in which to cook. The poorest families had only one room where they cooked, ate, worked, and slept. It is also possible that most of these extremely poor families owned only one kettle. Poor town-dwellers usually didnt even have that, and obtained most of their meals ready-made from shops and street vendors in the Medieval version of fast-food. Those who lived on the edge of starvation had to make use of every edible item they could find, and just about everything could go into the pot (often a footed kettle that rested in the fire rather than over it) for the evening meal. This included beans, grains, vegetables, and sometimes meat — often bacon. Using a little meat in this manner would make it go further as sustenance. From the Hoax In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle that always hung over the fire. Every day they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They ate mostly vegetables and did not get much meat. They would eat the stew for dinner, leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight and then start over the next day. Sometimes the stew had food in it that had been there for quite a while — hence the rhyme, Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old. The resulting stew was called pottage, and it was the basic element of the peasant diet. And yes, sometimes the remains of one days cooking would be used in the next days fare. (This is true in some modern peasant stew recipes.) But it was not common for food to remain there for nine days — or for more than two or three days, for that matter. People living on the edge of starvation were not likely to leave food on their plates or in the pot. Contaminating the carefully-gathered ingredients of a nights supper with rotting nine-day-old remains, thus risking illness, is even more unlikely. What is likely is that leftovers from the evening meal were incorporated into a breakfast that would sustain the hard-working peasant family for much of the day. We have not been able to discover the origin of the peas porridge hot rhyme. It is unlikely to spring from 16th-century life since, according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the word porridge did not come into use until the 17th century. Resources Carlin, Martha, Fast Food and Urban Living Standards in Medieval England, in Carlin, Martha, and Rosenthal, Joel T., eds., Food and Eating in Medieval Europe (The Hambledon Press, 1998), pp. 27-51.Gies, Frances Gies, Joseph, Life in a Medieval Village (HarperPerennial, 1991), p. 96.