Hemingway employs several examples of color imagery in "Cat in the Rain." The opening paragraphs discuss all the green outside of Kitty's window--the green palm trees, the shiny green benches and table, and the public garden.  All of the bright green suggests the growth and vivacity of life just outside of Kitty's reach.  While she is bored and feels lifeless inside the hotel and inside her marriage, life moves on outside.

The story also contains many examples of rain imagery and the rain's effect on the setting and characters.  While the rain causes a war monument to glisten and empowers the sea, it also forces humans to vacate the square and leaves a lonely waiter without customers.  The "poor" cat crouches outside by itself seeking shelter from the rain just as Kitty feels empty herself and longs to go down and get the cat even though it might mean that she has to venture out on her own into the rain.

As many of his other stories, Hemmingway has portrayed an American couple as being unable to get in touch with their emotions.  The husband is busy ignoring the wife's worries.  The cat in many ways serves as the image and the symbol of this lack of connection between the couple.  The wife, unnamed, indicates that she worries about the cat and does not want it to be hurt or confined by the rain.  Her inability to free it from those constraints coincides with the fact that she is kept confined by her husband and unable to pursue her own interests or her own life.

In many ways Hemmingway is suggesting that the wife feels the same way as the cat.  She cannot grow her hair out the way she wants, she cannot go out and pursue things as she desires, just as the cat is limited by the rain.  Of course, both of them could go out and risk getting wet or breaking all kinds of social constraints, but at the time, this really was as unthinkable for the wife as it was for the cat.