The Awakening and Vanishment of Female Subject Consciousness in Cat in the Rain

Abstract

Ernest Hemingway is a world‐famous American writer in the 20th century. The ＂tough man＂ image he created in many works has left a deep impression on the world, while the female characters in his works are often ignored by people. Therefore, he was once regarded as a ＂misogyny＂ writer by some literary critics. But he himself said, ＂Female characters are the hardest to deal with, but don't worry when people criticize the kind of women you've created. That just means your female characters are different from their female characters.＂ Hemingway words indicate that no matter on the selection or depiction of female characters, he had a high standard and paid great attention to it. From the perspective of material selection, the women he paid attention to are often the vulnerable groups in the society at that time. Those women were influenced by the mainstream thought of ＂men are superior to women＂ in the patriarchal society, and their subject consciousness was hard to recover or even lost in the illusion of ＂husband's love and respect＂. In this paper, the author would attempt to discuss the awakening and vanishment of female subject consciousness of the female character, the American wife in Cat in The Rain.