Character Analysis
George is one of the most realistic characters in this story. Think of a time when one of your siblings was bored, unoccupied, and wanted nothing more than to get your attention. You may have been reading, like George, watching a game, or doing homework, and probably wanted nothing more than to be left alone. George is clearly pretty content with staying put—unlike his wife.
The wife in this story is almost constantly in motion, but her husband is the complete opposite of this. He's perfectly content with his reading. He even suggests that his wife does the same after throwing a cranky "shut up" in her direction.
George is the most inactive figure in the story. His eyes look up from the book now and then, he "shifts" at one point, but the guy never actually leaves the bed. George's sense of stability and satisfaction is in the life of books, you might say, rather than in his own life—the one that he shares with his wife, and it's clear in this story that she's starting to feel and voice dissatisfaction.
In a way, George's character represents everything the wife wants to escape. Her wish list is full of material goods, which can be seen as at odds with her husband's fondness of intellectual fulfillment. George might sense her dissatisfaction with him, which would explain the slightly touchy "shut-up." Then again, he's just trying to read his darn book.
It's pretty amazing how Hemingway makes George so relatable considering how little face time he gets in the story. Not only does he never leave the bed, he also says very little. It's rather the way he says things that give you a sense of his character. For example: when he tells his wife that he will go down for the cat, he doesn't "say" it or "insist" upon it, he simply "offered" the remark—"from the bed" (5) His tone is pretty noncommittal, and his wife clearly knows this, judging by the way she brushes it aside.
This is in marked contrast, of course, to the padrone and what the wife likes about him, like "the way he wanted to serve her" (12). Compare the husband's attitude toward his wife going out in the rain to the padrone's. George simply says, "'Don't get wet,'" (8); as the maid holds the umbrella behind the woman at the door, she insists, 'You must not get wet'" (13). In this way, the actions and words of the padrone and maid represent what the wife feels she doesn't get from George: care, maybe even love.
Or maybe the poor guy just really wanted to finish his chapter in peace. No doubt Hemingway could have sympathized with that, right? What do you think?