And that says something different, that the cat symbolizes the "wife who longs to be loved." "wife who longs to be loved" is not quite the same as "a cat", is it? The question is about how that Prof. "knew" the cat was a baby.
I'm with 'BSO on this one when he said...
I always thought of it as professors justifying their jobs by "finding" things in literature whether or not the authors ever intended to be there.