Catcher In The Rye Holden's Hat

Holden’s red hunting hat is mentioned numerous times throughout the story. After losing his fencing team’s equipment on the subway, Holden buys this hat for $1 in New York. This is at a time when he is at a low point and feels vulnerable. From then on, this hat becomes his “safety blanket” and he wears it during other times when he’s alone and feels weak. “I wore it, I swung the old peak way around to the back-very corny, I’ll admit, but I liked it that way” (p. 10).

The Red hunting hat was a staple in the life of Holden Caulfield. Throughout the story, in times of discomfort Holden reaches for his hat. Even though it was a safety blanket in a way, Holden was ashamed to wear it at times. The hat was a physical representation of Holden’s individuality. He is definitely his own person, but deep down he knows that even he is a phony in one way or another.

One major symbol that reflects Holden’s view of the course of Holden’s conflict throughout the novel is his red hat. "Then what she did—it damn near killed me—she reached into my coat pocket and took out my red hunting hat and put it on my head. “Don’t you want it?” I said. “You can wear it for a while.”

While Holden was in New York for a fencing competition, he purchased a red hunting hat and this hat has come up numerous times during important parts of the story. For example, when Holden was writing about Allie’s baseball mitt and after he left Pencey. Holden wears his hat as a way to show who he really is, even though he is not comfortable wearing it in public , “I put my red hunting hat on, and turned the peak around to the back, the way I liked it,”(Salinger 68). Although Holden feels embarrassed when he wears his hat out in public it is a way for him to feel more confident in his own skin rather than being depressed all the time. The red hunting hat is a symbol shown again and again about who Holden really is as a person. It shows that he likes and enjoys doing unusual things, but at the same time is cautious about where he wears his favorite

Holden seems to enjoy being around Phoebe and finds everything she does fascinating. Holden blames his isolation and hate for phony people on the society but Phoebe tries to make him see that he is the problem. Holden then says that he wants to be the catcher in the rye, a man who catches kids as they fall off the cliffs from the rye field. I find this contradicting because he can’t save himself from his responsibilities in the adult world but wants to save others. Holden gives Phoebe his red hunting hat. I think the hat might symbolize safety and protectiveness. The hat could also symbolize the catcher from the catcher In the rye, and who possessed it might be the catcher. Once Holden gives the hat to Phoebe he kept feeling like he was going

It is obvious that Holden uses the hat as a mark of individuality and independence. Holden’s new hunting hat is very important to him. Part of him seems to want to display his rebelliousness, but another part of him wants to fit in (or at least hide his mental instability. Although he mentions the freezing temperature, Holden does not wear the hat near the football game or at Spencer’s house; he waits for the privacy of his own room to put it on. His desire for independence is connected to his feeling of alienation, to the bitterness he has for the rest of the world.

A symbol is an object, action, or event that represents something or that creates a range of associations beyond itself. In J.D. Salinger’s novel The Catcher in the Rye, protagonist, Holden Caulfield, wears a red hunting hat that he purchases for one dollar while in New York City. The hat is put on numerous times throughout the novel, when Holden needs to hide or needs a boost in confidence. The red hunting hat Holden wears symbolizes Holden’s identity and his attempt to preserve his and his sister Phoebe’s innocence.

Holden is really saying that when he wears the hat, he zones out on the world and focuses on himself, and his own problems, as if he had shot them, because they are dead to him at the moment. The red hunting hat symbolizes the search for the truth because Holden wants to be the “catcher”, hence the title of the book, and he wants to help

There is also a sense of self-consciousness that surrounds the hat as well. Holden never fails to mention when he is going to wear the hat and even removes the hat when he is going to be around people he knows, because "it was corny" but he "liked it that way." His self-consciousness of his hat therefore introduces a new component to the theme: Holden's want for isolation versus his desire for companionship.

To begin, when reading the novel one seems to come upon Holden‘s red hunting hat many times while reading. This hunting hat demonstrates Holden’s need for safety and comfort. He was deprived of it when he

Holden's hunting hat also shows symbolism of different moods and feelings he may be experiencing. First, the fact that it was a "hunting hat" symbolizes that he is searching for himself. And second, there is a pattern as to the way he wears he hat. When he is in a lost and depressed mood he would "turn peak around to the back" (Salinger 45), when he was in a good mood he would "pull the peak…around to the front" (Salinger 34). There is no specific sequence in these changes, his hat turns with his mood. It is as if the hat is directing him and comforting him in his quest to find himself.

Holden doesn’t need the hat anymore a source of his protection and identity because he thinks that Phoebe needs the hat more than him. Holden wants phoebe to be protected from the dangers of growing up and losing innocence, so he tells her to keep it. Salinger writes, “Then I took my hunting hat out of my coat pocket and gave it to her. She likes those kinds of crazy hats.” (97) Holden knows that alienation is what represents what little stability there is in his life and that he never addresses his emotions head on, but he chooses to hide from them. Holden doesn’t need to protect himself anymore because he knows who he is and that the red hunting hat will not change him as a person. Holden also realizes that while he wants to have connections, alienation is what separates the two and causes problems. He starts to lose the fear of what other people think of him due to the growing fear that phoebe will get hurt one day. He gives the hat to phoebe as a means of protection for when she grows up and faces challenges in life instead of using the hat as a means of a source of protection for

Holden’s red hat represents his individuality and his interactions with it and Phoebe show how he no longer wants it. Salinger writes, “Then I took my hunting hat out of my coat pocket and gave it to her” (180). This quote not only shows how Holden no longer wants to be different but how he really want to give his sister the chance to be unique and express herself. He has given up on trying to be himself, even by when he is alone. Salinger writes, “The reason I saw her, she had my crazy hunting hat on-you could see that hat about ten miles away” (205). Holden is saying that being unique makes him stand out, but unlike how

Salinger uses Holden’s red hunting hat to show how Holden tries to differentiate himself from the “phony” or “fake” people he seems to meet so often. An example of this is when Holden is in his dorm room at Pencey with Ackley and Stradlater when Ackley finds Holden's red hunting cap and starts questioning him about it.“‘That’s a dear shooting hat.’ ‘Like hell it is.’ I took it off and looked at it. I sort of closed one eye, like I was taking aim at it. ‘This is a people shooting hat,’ I said. ‘I shoot people in this hat.’” (Salinger, 26). In this passage, Holden is mentally “targeting” people as if his hunting hat would allow him to “shoot” other people. While Holden is at Pencey, he manages to alienate a majority of the school after losing the team’s equipment, and doesn’t have many friends there with the small exception of Stradlater and Ackley with whom he is friendly with. The people at Pencey, according to Holden, are all fakes and phonies and Holden imagined himself being able to rid himself of them whilst donning his red hunting hat. After Holden goes to

One of the literary devices in this novel is symbolism. Holden’s red hunting hat is the symbolic feature that alienates him from society. Ackley tells Holden “Up home we wear a hat like that to shoot deer in, for Chrissake… That’s a deer shooting hat” (Salinger 30), meaning Holden’s hat is only worn while hunting. Holden does not seem to care much for Ackley’s opinion and he wears it anyways. This shows Holden’s individuality and his uncommon desire compared