"The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" by James Thurber

"WE'RE going through!" The Commander's voice was like thin ice breaking. He wore his full-dress uniform, with the heavily braided white cap pulled down rakishly over one cold gray eye. "We can't make it, sir. It's spoiling for a hurricane, if you ask me." "I'm not asking you, Lieutenant Berg," said the Commander. "Throw on the power lights! Rev her up to 8500! We're going through!" The pounding of the cylinders increased: ta-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa. The Commander stared at the ice forming on the pilot window. He walked over and twisted a row of complicated dials. "Switch on No. 8 auxiliary!" he shouted. "Switch on No. 8 auxiliary!" repeated Lieutenant Berg. "Full strength in No. 3 turret!" shouted the Commander. "Full strength in No. 3 turret!" The crew, bending to their various tasks in the huge, hurtling eight-engined Navy hydroplane, looked at each other and grinned. "The Old Man'll get us through," they said to one another. "The Old Man ain't afraid of hell!" . . .
"Not so fast! You're driving too fast!" said Mrs. Mitty. "What are you driving so fast for?"
"Hmm?" said Walter Mitty. He looked at his wife, in the seat beside him, with shocked astonishment. She seemed grossly unfamiliar, like a strange woman who had yelled at him in a crowd. "You were up to fifty-five," she said. "You know I don't like to go more than forty. You were up to fifty-five." Walter Mitty drove on toward Waterbury in silence, the roaring of the SN202 through the worst storm in twenty years of Navy flying fading in the remote, intimate airways of his mind. "You're tensed up again," said Mrs. Mitty. "It's one of your days. I wish you'd let Dr. Renshaw look you over."
Walter Mitty stopped the car in front of the building where his wife went to have her hair done. "Remember to get those overshoes while I'm having my hair done," she said. "I don't need overshoes," said Mitty. She put her mirror back into her bag. "We've been all through that," she said, getting out of the car. "You're not a young man any longer." He raced the engine a little. "Why don't you wear your gloves? Have you lost your gloves?" Walter Mitty reached in a pocket and brought out the gloves. He put them on, but after she had turned and gone into the building and he had driven on to a red light, he took them off again. "Pick it up, brother!" snapped a cop as the light changed, and Mitty hastily pulled on his gloves and lurched ahead. He drove around the streets aimlessly for a time, and then he drove past the hospital on his way to the parking lot.
. . . "It's the millionaire banker, Wellington McMillan," said the pretty nurse. "Yes?" said Walter Mitty, removing his gloves slowly. "Who has the case?" "Dr. Renshaw and Dr. Benbow, but there are two specialists here, Dr. Remington from New York and Dr. Pritchard-Mitford from London. He flew over." A door opened down a long, cool corridor and Dr. Renshaw came out. He looked distraught and haggard. "Hello, Mitty," he said. `'We're having the devil's own time with McMillan, the millionaire banker and close personal friend of Roosevelt. Obstreosis of the ductal tract. Tertiary. Wish you'd take a look at him." "Glad to," said Mitty.
In the operating room there were whispered introductions: "Dr. Remington, Dr. Mitty. Dr. Pritchard-Mitford, Dr. Mitty." "I've read your book on streptothricosis," said Pritchard-Mitford, shaking hands. "A brilliant performance, sir." "Thank you," said Walter Mitty. "Didn't know you were in the States, Mitty," grumbled Remington. "Coals to Newcastle, bringing Mitford and me up here for a tertiary." "You are very kind," said Mitty. A huge, complicated machine, connected to the operating table, with many tubes and wires, began at this moment to go pocketa-pocketa-pocketa. "The new anesthetizer is giving away!" shouted an intern. "There is no one in the East who knows how to fix it!" "Quiet, man!" said Mitty, in a low, cool voice. He sprang to the machine, which was now going pocketa-pocketa-queep-pocketa-queep . He began fingering delicately a row of glistening dials. "Give me a fountain pen!" he snapped. Someone handed him a fountain pen. He pulled a faulty piston out of the machine and inserted the pen in its place. "That will hold for ten minutes," he said. "Get on with the operation. A nurse hurried over and whispered to Renshaw, and Mitty saw the man turn pale. "Coreopsis has set in," said Renshaw nervously. "If you would take over, Mitty?" Mitty looked at him and at the craven figure of Benbow, who drank, and at the grave, uncertain faces of the two great specialists. "If you wish," he said. They slipped a white gown on him, he adjusted a mask and drew on thin gloves; nurses handed him shining . . .
"Back it up, Mac!! Look out for that Buick!" Walter Mitty jammed on the brakes. "Wrong lane, Mac," said the parking-lot attendant, looking at Mitty closely. "Gee. Yeh," muttered Mitty. He began cautiously to back out of the lane marked "Exit Only." "Leave her sit there," said the attendant. "I'll put her away." Mitty got out of the car. "Hey, better leave the key." "Oh," said Mitty, handing the man the ignition key. The attendant vaulted into the car, backed it up with insolent skill, and put it where it belonged.
They're so damn cocky, thought Walter Mitty, walking along Main Street; they think they know everything. Once he had tried to take his chains off, outside New Milford, and he had got them wound around the axles. A man had had to come out in a wrecking car and unwind them, a young, grinning garageman. Since then Mrs. Mitty always made him drive to a garage to have the chains taken off. The next time, he thought, I'll wear my right arm in a sling; they won't grin at me then. I'll have my right arm in a sling and they'll see I couldn't possibly take the chains off myself. He kicked at the slush on the sidewalk. "Overshoes," he said to himself, and he began looking for a shoe store.
When he came out into the street again, with the overshoes in a box under his arm, Walter Mitty began to wonder what the other thing was his wife had told him to get. She had told him, twice before they set out from their house for Waterbury. In a way he hated these weekly trips to town--he was always getting something wrong. Kleenex, he thought, Squibb's, razor blades? No. Tooth paste, toothbrush, bicarbonate, Carborundum, initiative and referendum? He gave it up. But she would remember it. "Where's the what's-its- name?" she would ask. "Don't tell me you forgot the what's-its-name." A newsboy went by shouting something about the Waterbury trial.
. . . "Perhaps this will refresh your memory." The District Attorney suddenly thrust a heavy automatic at the quiet figure on the witness stand. "Have you ever seen this before?'' Walter Mitty took the gun and examined it expertly. "This is my Webley-Vickers 50.80," ho said calmly. An excited buzz ran around the courtroom. The Judge rapped for order. "You are a crack shot with any sort of firearms, I believe?" said the District Attorney, insinuatingly. "Objection!" shouted Mitty's attorney. "We have shown that the defendant could not have fired the shot. We have shown that he wore his right arm in a sling on the night of the fourteenth of July." Walter Mitty raised his hand briefly and the bickering attorneys were stilled. "With any known make of gun," he said evenly, "I could have killed Gregory Fitzhurst at three hundred feet with my left hand." Pandemonium broke loose in the courtroom. A woman's scream rose above the bedlam and suddenly a lovely, dark-haired girl was in Walter Mitty's arms. The District Attorney struck at her savagely. Without rising from his chair, Mitty let the man have it on the point of the chin. "You miserable cur!" . . .
"Puppy biscuit," said Walter Mitty. He stopped walking and the buildings of Waterbury rose up out of the misty courtroom and surrounded him again. A woman who was passing laughed. "He said 'Puppy biscuit,'" she said to her companion. "That man said 'Puppy biscuit' to himself." Walter Mitty hurried on. He went into an A. & P., not the first one he came to but a smaller one farther up the street. "I want some biscuit for small, young dogs," he said to the clerk. "Any special brand, sir?" The greatest pistol shot in the world thought a moment. "It says 'Puppies Bark for It' on the box," said Walter Mitty.
His wife would be through at the hairdresser's in fifteen minutes' Mitty saw in looking at his watch, unless they had trouble drying it; sometimes they had trouble drying it. She didn't like to get to the hotel first, she would want him to be there waiting for her as usual. He found a big leather chair in the lobby, facing a window, and he put the overshoes and the puppy biscuit on the floor beside it. He picked up an old copy of Liberty and sank down into the chair. "Can Germany Conquer the World Through the Air?" Walter Mitty looked at the pictures of bombing planes and of ruined streets.
. . . "The cannonading has got the wind up in young Raleigh, sir," said the sergeant. Captain Mitty looked up at him through tousled hair. "Get him to bed," he said wearily, "with the others. I'll fly alone." "But you can't, sir," said the sergeant anxiously. "It takes two men to handle that bomber and the Archies are pounding hell out of the air. Von Richtman's circus is between here and Saulier." "Somebody's got to get that ammunition dump," said Mitty. "I'm going over. Spot of brandy?" He poured a drink for the sergeant and one for himself. War thundered and whined around the dugout and battered at the door. There was a rending of wood and splinters flew through the room. "A bit of a near thing," said Captain Mitty carelessly. 'The box barrage is closing in," said the sergeant. "We only live once, Sergeant," said Mitty, with his faint, fleeting smile. "Or do we?" He poured another brandy and tossed it off. "I never see a man could hold his brandy like you, sir," said the sergeant. "Begging your pardon, sir." Captain Mitty stood up and strapped on his huge Webley-Vickers automatic. "It's forty kilometers through hell, sir," said the sergeant. Mitty finished one last brandy. "After all," he said softly, "what isn't?" The pounding of the cannon increased; there was the rat-tat-tatting of machine guns, and from somewhere came the menacing pocketa-pocketa-pocketa of the new flame-throwers. Walter Mitty walked to the door of the dugout humming "Aupres de Ma Blonde." He turned and waved to the sergeant. "Cheerio!" he said. . . .
Something struck his shoulder. "I've been looking all over this hotel for you," said Mrs. Mitty. "Why do you have to hide in this old chair? How did you expect me to find you?" "Things close in," said Walter Mitty vaguely. "What?" Mrs. Mitty said. "Did you get the what's-its-name? The puppy biscuit? What's in that box?" "Overshoes," said Mitty. "Couldn't you have put them on in the store?" 'I was thinking," said Walter Mitty. "Does it ever occur to you that I am sometimes thinking?" She looked at him. "I'm going to take your temperature when I get you home," she said.
They went out through the revolving doors that made a faintly derisive whistling sound when you pushed them. It was two blocks to the parking lot. At the drugstore on the corner she said, "Wait here for me. I forgot something. I won't be a minute." She was more than a minute. Walter Mitty lighted a cigarette. It began to rain, rain with sleet in it. He stood up against the wall of the drugstore, smoking. . . . He put his shoulders back and his heels together. "To hell with the handkerchief," said Walter Mitty scornfully. He took one last drag on his cigarette and snapped it away. Then, with that faint, fleeting smile playing about his lips, he faced the firing squad; erect and motionless, proud and disdainful, Walter Mitty the Undefeated, inscrutable to the last.

Plot: Het verhaal gaat over Walter Mitty, een man vol fantasie, die samen met zijn vrouw in de stad is. In het verhaal komt het regelmatig voor dat Walter tijdens de dagelijkse bezigheden afdwaalt naar een fantasiewereld. Zo is hij in het begin de commandant van de 'Navy Seals', later in het verhaal is hij een dokter die het leven redt van een patient of een advocaat in een topzaak.
Scene: In de realiteit is dat de stad waar hij zich bevindt. In deze stad zijn er ook winkels waarin hij boodschappen doet en de auto waarin hij rijdt. In zijn fanstasie is dat het vliegtuig, het ziekenhuis en de rechtszaal.
Theme: De thematiek is ons niet helemaal duidelijk. Maar wij dachten dat het misschien te maken had met het feit dat anderen een bijzonderder en spannender leven hebben. Walter Mitty mist zelf iets in zijn leven en gaat daarom fantaseren over andere levens, met meer actie.
Characters: Walter Mitty in vele gedaanten (o.a. piloot, chirurg en advocaat) en zijn vrouw.
Point of View: Het verhaal wordt vanuit een buitenstaander vertelt.
Personal Opinion:
(Isabel) Ik vind het wel een grappig verhaal, omdat de stukjes in zijn fantasie wel grappig zijn. Omdat er in de stukjes realiteit weinig bijzonders gebeurd, denk ik dat het leven van Walter Mitty een beetje saai is en dat hij daarom dingen gaat bedenken. Het verhaal was makkelijk te lezen en daardoor ook makkelijk te begrijpen.
(Edine) Waarschijnlijk vindt Walter Mitty zijn eigen leven een beetje saai en dagdroomt hij daarom steeds over een spannender leven. De delen dat hij dagdroomt over een leven als piloot, chirurg en advocaat zijn grappig. Het echte leven van Walter Mitty vond ik niet echt boeiend om te lezen. Ook vond ik het leuk hoe er steeds een link was tussen het echte leven van Walter en het moment dat hij weer ging dagdromen.

"The Open Window" by H.H. Munro (a.k.a. Saki)

"My aunt will be down presently, Mr. Nuttel," said a very self-possessed young lady of fifteen; "in the meantime you must try and put up with me." Framton Nuttel endeavoured to say the correct something which should duly flatter the niece of the moment without unduly discounting the aunt that was to come. Privately he doubted more than ever whether these formal visits on a succession of total strangers would do much towards helping the nerve cure which he was supposed to be undergoing. "I know how it will be," his sister had said when he was preparing to migrate to this rural retreat; "you will bury yourself down there and not speak to a living soul, and your nerves will be worse than ever from moping. I shall just give you letters of introduction to all the people I know there. Some of them, as far as I can remember, were quite nice." Framton wondered whether Mrs. Sappleton, the lady to whom he was presenting one of the letters of introduction came into the nice division. "Do you know many of the people round here?" asked the niece, when she judged that they had had sufficient silent communion. "Hardly a soul," said Framton. "My sister was staying here, at the rectory, you know, some four years ago, and she gave me letters of introduction to some of the people here." He made the last statement in a tone of distinct regret. "Then you know practically nothing about my aunt?" pursued the self-possessed young lady. "Only her name and address," admitted the caller. He was wondering whether Mrs. Sappleton was in the married or widowed state. An undefinable something about the room seemed to suggest masculine habitation. "Her great tragedy happened just three years ago," said the child; "that would be since your sister's time." "Her tragedy?" asked Framton; somehow in this restful country spot tragedies seemed out of place. "You may wonder why we keep that window wide open on an October afternoon," said the niece, indicating a large French window that opened on to a lawn. "It is quite warm for the time of the year," said Framton; "but has that window got anything to do with the tragedy?" "Out through that window, three years ago to a day, her husband and her two young brothers went off for their day's shooting. They never came back. In crossing the moor to their favourite snipe-shooting ground they were all three engulfed in a treacherous piece of bog. It had been that dreadful wet summer, you know, and places that were safe in other years gave way suddenly without warning. Their bodies were never recovered. That was the dreadful part of it." Here the child's voice lost its self-possessed note and became falteringly human. "Poor aunt always thinks that they will come back someday, they and the little brown spaniel that was lost with them, and walk in at that window just as they used to do. That is why the window is kept open every evening till it is quite dusk. Poor dear aunt, she has often told me how they went out, her husband with his white waterproof coat over his arm, and Ronnie, her youngest brother, singing 'Bertie, why do you bound?' as he always did to tease her, because she said it got on her nerves. Do you know, sometimes on still, quiet evenings like this, I almost get a creepy feeling that they will all walk in through that window - "
She broke off with a little shudder. It was a relief to Framton when the aunt bustled into the room with a whirl of apologies for being late in making her appearance. "I hope Vera has been amusing you?" she said. "She has been very interesting," said Framton. "I hope you don't mind the open window," said Mrs. Sappleton briskly; "my husband and brothers will be home directly from shooting, and they always come in this way. They've been out for snipe in the marshes today, so they'll make a fine mess over my poor carpets. So like you menfolk, isn't it?" She rattled on cheerfully about the shooting and the scarcity of birds, and the prospects for duck in the winter. To Framton it was all purely horrible. He made a desperate but only partially successful effort to turn the talk on to a less ghastly topic, he was conscious that his hostess was giving him only a fragment of her attention, and her eyes were constantly straying past him to the open window and the lawn beyond. It was certainly an unfortunate coincidence that he should have paid his visit on this tragic anniversary. "The doctors agree in ordering me complete rest, an absence of mental excitement, and avoidance of anything in the nature of violent physical exercise," announced Framton, who laboured under the tolerably widespread delusion that total strangers and chance acquaintances are hungry for the least detail of one's ailments and infirmities, their cause and cure. "On the matter of diet they are not so much in agreement," he continued. "No?" said Mrs. Sappleton, in a voice which only replaced a yawn at the last moment. Then she suddenly brightened into alert attention - but not to what Framton was saying. "Here they are at last!" she cried. "Just in time for tea, and don't they look as if they were muddy up to the eyes!" Framton shivered slightly and turned towards the niece with a look intended to convey sympathetic comprehension. The child was staring out through the open window with a dazed horror in her eyes. In a chill shock of nameless fear Framton swung round in his seat and looked in the same direction. In the deepening twilight three figures were walking across the lawn towards the window, they all carried guns under their arms, and one of them was additionally burdened with a white coat hung over his shoulders. A tired brown spaniel kept close at their heels. Noiselessly they neared the house, and then a hoarse young voice chanted out of the dusk: "I said, Bertie, why do you bound?"
Framton grabbed wildly at his stick and hat; the hall door, the gravel drive, and the front gate were dimly noted stages in his headlong retreat. A cyclist coming along the road had to run into the hedge to avoid imminent collision. "Here we are, my dear," said the bearer of the white mackintosh, coming in through the window, "fairly muddy, but most of it's dry. Who was that who bolted out as we came up?" "A most extraordinary man, a Mr. Nuttel," said Mrs. Sappleton; "could only talk about his illnesses, and dashed off without a word of goodby or apology when you arrived. One would think he had seen a ghost." "I expect it was the spaniel," said the niece calmly; "he told me he had a horror of dogs. He was once hunted into a cemetery somewhere on the banks of the Ganges by a pack of pariah dogs, and had to spend the night in a newly dug grave with the creatures snarling and grinning and foaming just above him. Enough to make anyone lose their nerve." Romance at short notice was her speciality.

Plot:Mr. Nuttel is bij mrs. Sappleton in huis, maar zij is er nog niet dus praat eerst haar nichtje met mr. Nuttel. Zij vertelt hem waarom het raam open staat: De man van mrs Sappleton en haar 2 broers waren 3 jaar geleden vertrokken en zijn nog steeds niet terug gekomen. Mrs Sappleton dacht dat ze elke moment weer zouden komen, maar het nichtje zei dat dat niet kon, want ze zouden om gekomen zijn en nooit meer teruggevonden.Dan komt mrs Sappleton naar beneden en vertelt dat haar man en 2 broers zo weer konden komen dus mr Nuttel die denkt dat ze echt niet goed is. Dan zien ze 3 mensen aan komen lopen. Ze zien er net zo uit als het nichtje had beschreven dus mr. Nuttel denkt dat het spoken zijn en rent weg. Mrs Sappleton vindt mr. Nuttel dan maar een rare man. Dan zegt Vera dat hij bang was voor de hond. Dus liegt ze alweer.
Scene: Het speelt zich af op het platteland van Engeland naast een moeras.
Theme: Wij denken dat het thema van dit verhaal is dat je niet alles moet geloven wat je verteld wordt. Het beste voorbeeld in dit verhaal is het verhaal over de mannen dat Vera vertelt. Mr. Nuttel gelooft dit verhaal en wanneer hij de drie mannen ziet, rent hij uit paniek weg, omdat hij denkt dat het geesten zijn.
Characters: Mr. Nuttel is de main character. Verder komen in het verhaal mrs. Sappleton en haar nichtje Vera voor.
Point of view: Het vehaal is geschreven in een hij/zij perspectief.
Personal opinion:
(Edine)Het is ironisch dat het nichtje Vera, wat waarheid betekent, heet, omdat ze in dit verhaal toch meerdere malen liegt. In het begin vond ik het maar een vaag verhaal, omdat ik niet in de gaten had dat Vera het verhaal over die drie mannen loog. Achteraf vind ik het wel een leuk verhaal.
(Isabel) Ik vond het grappig dat Vera Mr. Nuttel van alles wijs kon maken op het goede moment. Alles in het verhaal was goed getimed en daardoor was het leuk om te lezen.

"Cat in the Rain" by Ernest Hemingway

There were only two Americans stopping at the hotel. They did not know any of the people they passed on the stairs on their way to and from their room. Their room was on the second floor facing the sea. It also faced the public garden and war monument. There were big palms and green benches in the public garden. In the good weather there was always an artist with his easel. Artists liked the way the palms grew and the bright colors of the hotels facing the sea. Italians came from a long way off to look up at the war monument. It was made of bronze and glistened in the rain. It was raining. The rain dripped from the palm trees. Water stood in pools on the gravel paths. The sea broke in a long line in the rain. The motor cars were gone from the square by the war monument. Across the square in the doorway of the cafe a waiter stood looking out at the empty square.The American wife stood at the window looking out. Outside right under their window a cat was crouched under one of the dripping green tables. The cat was trying to make herself so compact that she would not be dripped on.“I’m going down and get that kitty,” the American wife said.“I’ll do it,” her husband offered from the bed.“No, I’ll get it. The poor kitty is out trying to keep dry under the table.”The husband went on reading, lying propped up with the two pillows at the foot of the bed.“Don’t get wet,” he said.The wife went downstairs and the hotel owner stood up and bowed to her as she passed the office. His desk was at the far end of the office. He was an old man and very tall.“Il piove,” the wife said. She liked the hotelkeeper.“Si, si, Signora, brutto tempo. It is very bad weather.”He stood behind his desk in the far end of the dim room. The wife liked him. She liked the way he wanted to serve her. She liked the way he felt about being a hotel-keeper. She liked his old, heavy face and big hands.Liking him she opened the door and looked out. It was raining harder. A man in a rubber cape was crossing the empty square to the cafe. The cat would be around to the right. Perhaps she could go along to the eaves. As she stood in the doorway an umbrella opened behind her. It was the maid who looked after their room.“You must not get wet,” she smiled, speaking Italian. Of course, the hotel-keeper had sent her.With the maid holding the umbrella over her, she walked along the gravel path until she was under their window. The table was there, washed bright green in the rain, but the cat was gone. She was suddenly disappointed. The maid looked up at her.“Ha perduto qualque cosa, Signora?” “There was a cat,” said the American girl.“A cat?”“Si, il gatto.”“A cat?” the maid laughed. “A cat in the rain?”“Yes,” she said, “under the table.” Then, “Oh, I wanted it so much. I wanted a kitty.”When she talked English the maid’s face tightened.“Come, Signora,” she said. “We must get back inside. You will be wet.”“I suppose so,” said the American girl.They went back along the gravel path and passed in the door. The maid stayed outside to close the umbrella. As the American girl passed the office, the padrone bowed from his desk. Something felt very small and tight inside the girl. The padrone made her feel very small and at the same time really important. She had a momentary feeling of being of supreme importance. She went on up the stairs. She opened the door of the room. George was on the bed reading.“Did you get the cat?” he asked, putting the book down.“It was gone.”“Wonder where it went to,” he said, resting his eyes from reading. She sat down on the bed.“I wanted it so much,” she said. “I don’t know why I wanted it so much. I wanted that poor kitty. It isn’t any fun to be a poor kitty out in the rain.”George was reading again.She went over and sat in front of the mirror of the dressing table looking at herself with the hand glass. She studied her profile, first one side and then the other. Then she studied the back of her head and her neck.“Don’t you think it would be a good idea if I let my hair grow out?” she asked, looking at her profile again.George looked up and saw the back of her neck, clipped close like a boy’s.“I like it the way it is.”“I get so tired of it,” she said. “I get so tired of looking like a boy.”George shifted his position in the bed. He hadn’t looked away from her since she started to speak.“You look pretty darn nice,” he said. She laid the mirror down on the dresser and went over to the window and looked out. It was getting dark.“I want to pull my hair back tight and smooth and make a big knot at the back that I can feel,” she said. “I want to have a kitty to sit on my lap and purr when I stroke her.”“Yeah?” George said from the bed.“And I want to eat at a table with my own silver and I want candles. And I want it to be spring and I want to brush my hair out in front of a mirror and I want a kitty and I want some new clothes.”“Oh, shut up and get something to read,” George said. He was reading again.His wife was looking out of the window. It was quite dark now and still raining in the palm trees.“Anyway, I want a cat,” she said, “I want a cat. I want a cat now. If I can’t have long hair or any fun, I can have a cat.”George was not listening. He was reading his book. His wife looked out of the window where the light had come on in the square.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.”

Plot: Het verhaal gaat over een Amerikaans koppel dat hun vakantie doorbrengt in een Italiaans hotel. Het is een regenachtige dag wanneer de Amerikaanse vrouw een kat in de regen ziet. Ze wil hem beschermen tegen de regendruppels. Wanneer ze het hotel uitgaat, dat gerund wordt door een oude Italiaanse man, die er alles voor over lijkt te hebben om de vrouw tevreden te stellen, is de kat verdwenen. Wanneer ze teruggaat naar de hotelkamer begint ze een gesprek met haar man George. Terwijl George de hele tijd leest, vertelt ze hoe graag ze die kat, en andere dingen zoals haar eigen zilveren bestek om mee te eten, zou willen hebben. Het lijkt of George geirriteerd is en het hem allemaal niet interesseert. Aan het einde van het verhaal wordt er op de deur geklopt en staat het dienstmeisje voor de deur. Ze heeft de kat in handen en zegt dat haar baas gevraagd heeft om de kat naar de Amerikaanse vrouw te brengen.
Scene: Het verhaal speelt zich af in een Italiaans hotel.
Theme: Wij denken dat het thema van het verhaal is dat een van de twee partners dominant wordt en de ander de situatie probeert te veranderen of te verbeteren. Als het voor allebei duidelijk is dat er problemen zijn, kunnen ze het huwelijk redden. Als ze dit niet doorhebben, zullen ze steeds meer op het slechte weer gaan lijken en zal hun huwelijk stranden.
Characters: Het Amerikaanse koppel, de hotelbaas en het dienstmeisje.
Point of view: Het verhaal wordt geschreven vanuit een hij/zij perspectief.
Personal opinion:
(Edine) Ik vond het verhaal niet erg leuk, omdat er niet zo heel veel in gebeurde. Ik kon me wel ergeren aan de man, omdat hij zo weinig aandacht had voor zijn vrouw en het geloof ik zelf niet inzag dat hij haar te weinig aandacht gaf. De vergelijking van de relatie van het Amerikaanse koppel met het slechte weer vond ik ver gezocht, maar wel goed bedacht.
(Isabel) Het was een 'normaal' verhaal, een beetje saai omdat (zoals Edine zei) er niet echt actie in zit. Het was makkelijk om te lezen, maar het is niet iets dat ik anderen aan zou raden.