Cat in the Rain Isolation Quotes

Sometimes "isolation" can be a good thing—as it is here. After being on the receiving end of the padrone's bow and sign of respect, the wife is given the feeling of being someone singular, someone worthy of a gesture. In this part, the lonely isolation she felt before is inverted from a negative force to something much more uplifting.

George's unbreakable focus on his book is one of the strongest forces of isolation in the story. The wife seems to know she's excluded from his attention, so it's almost as if she's talking to herself throughout the story. How unaware do you think George actually is of his wife? And to what extent might she want to be isolated from him?

Is it at all strange to you that the wife's fantasy is filled with only herself, things, and the cat? Notice that there are no other people present in her fantasyland. The bond that she imagines with the cat is touching indeed, but it makes us wonder—to what extent do other people cause us to feel more isolated rather than cure it?