The Setting of Cat in the Rain and It's Meaning- Something You Didn't See that I Did

I know lots of people would want to make their blog posts on longer and deeper stories of Hemingway's like "The Short and Happy Life of Francis Macomber," with lots of things and parts to interpret, so I decided to stick with a shorter yet denser story of his, "Cat in the Rain."

One thing that piqued my interest was why the couple were at a hotel in Italy. In the Nick Adams stories we've read, Hemingway states that Nick Adams was wounded in Italy while on the battlefield fighting, just like Hemingway was in real life while fighting with the Red Cross.

And this seems to match up with "Cat in the Rain"; The story takes place during generally the same time, and there are people gathered around a war monument described towards the beginning of the story. Hemingway was probably making a subtle allusion to his experience in WWI.
But, "Cat in the Rain" has almost no relation to WWI. I don't think the setting of Italy was to discuss the war, but rather to just be a foreign location that Hemingway could write about, with his experience of being in Italy for WWI.

But, this still doesn't answer the question of why the couple were in this hotel.
My first impressions were that they were in the hotel for a vacation. The location described in the first 3 paragraphs made their hotel seem like a nice place, "facing the sea... public garden and the war monument." The biggest evidence to suggest this are the palm trees; they aren't native to Italy, and are very expensive trees to have, a symbol of art and money. They aren't just staying in some shabby run-down inn, they are in a relatively good hotel.

But, Hemingway didn't write this story about a happy vacation. No, it's raining outside! And this isn't the only reason it's a gloomy day; the entire square where people would normally be looking at the war monument was completely empty, except for a waiter by his cafe. This setting is comparable to the wife and husband's relationship. It should be and at one point probably was happy, but right now, it is unsettling, with conflicting ideas between the Husband and Wife, the Wife wanting to have more things and have fun, while the Husband wants her to stay the way she is, and is more placid. However, when the cat arrives, the wife gets her way, and the story ends. Maybe the Husband would continue to argue with his Wife, or maybe he would learn to understand the feelings she expressed in the short story. The rain can lead to a storm, but it can also clear, leaving an open, blue sky.

6 6 Word Stories (Guest Starring: John Wu)

1. What happens next will SHOCK you!
2. Dreams of return are only dreams
3. He’s inside, I’m not, smoking pot (made this one with John Wu)
4. Drunk man found dead on porch
5. But, she'd already packed her bags
6. Donald Trump caught dancing with Putin