Significance Of Red Hunting Hat In Catcher In The Rye

In this quote we can see that Holden’s mood changed immediately after he put on his red hunting hat. His unstable sense of self has adjusted from being sad and discouraged to being confident so quickly which is out of the ordinary for normal people to happen. Because of Holden’s insecurity of himself, putting on this hat changes his appearance, which he likes, and makes him feel better about himself at that moment until he takes it off. It’s an ongoing cycle of security and insecurity causing Holden to have this unsure thought about himself as he is not sure who he really is with all these multiple identities. Another great example of Holden’s insecure sense of self is that he has the ability to be vulnerable to the influence since he does not feel that he may be educated enough to make the right decision or the fact that he is too put down on himself to stick up and fight for his decision. For instance, when staying in a hotel he was offered by an unknown man if he wanted to pay for an experience with a prostitute. Because of his state of being, Holden could not answer the way he wanted to, "'Okay,' I said. It was against my principles and all, but I was feeling so depressed I didn't even think" (Salinger

Reaching the very end of the novel there are several events that lead up to the conclusion that Holden evolves as a dynamic character. The last few contributions include Holden sitting in the rain while Phoebe goes on the carousel, and finally when readers learn Holden must have entered some sort of a mental institution. While waiting for Phoebe he sits on a bench as it starts raining and thinks to himself, “My hunting hat really gave me quite a lot of protection, in a way, but I got soaked anyway. I didn’t care, though.”(Salinger 213). One of the symbolic objects Holden keeps throughout the novel is the hat because it is comforting and gives him the feeling of protection. In this particular part of the novel it is clear that the hat can no longer protect him from entering the adult world. An English novelist Malcolm Bradbury expresses his opinion when writing, “Some seem to suggest a role for Holden in relation to childhood—he can be a catcher in the rye, the adult who is the protector of childish innocence. Over these episodes, Holden obviously develops and his attitudes change. He is hunting for his own

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

In these few sentences from the book The Catcher In the Rye Holden, the main character, talks about a red hunting hat he purchases. This hat represents Holden. Holden is very self conscious and goofy, the hat also helps him distance himself from other people. The author uses this technique because it shows another side of Holden, one that Holden would never show us himself. Throughout the book the hat is called corny and crazy, Holden also specifies how “I knew I wouldn’t meet anybody that knew me” and that “My hunting hat really gave me quite a lot of protection, in a way.” He makes a point of saying he wouldn’t meet anyone who knew him while he was wearing the hat and that it gave him protection (from others). These choices

But if you get on the other side, where there aren’t any hot-shots, then what’s a game about it? Nothing. No game” (8). Holden does not understand Spencer’s metaphor. Holden believes that life can only be a game if people are given advantages. From his point of view, he is one of the unlucky ones, but in reality he is on the side with the hot-shots, because he is given many advantages that others are not. Salinger emphasizes Holden’s immaturity in a very subtle way by having Holden’s authority figures always calling him “boy”. Both Mr. Spencer and Mr. Antolini call Holden “boy”. Of Spencer, Holden says, “I wished to hell he’d stop calling me ‘boy’ all the time” (12) and then later on, Antolini tells Holden, “You’re a very, very strange boy” (193). Both Mr. Spencer and Mr. Antolini recognize and acknowledge Holden’s immature behaviour in calling him “boy”. This only stresses the fact that Holden cannot seem to realize he is acting more like a child than a teenager. Holden’s red hunting hat is a very important symbol in The Catcher in the Rye. Holden uses this hat as a way to hide from society. He says, “That hat I bought had earlaps in it, and I put them on–I didn’t give a damn how I looked. Nobody was around anyway” (53). Holden thinks that wearing his red hunting hat makes him an individual, but in reality, he will only wear it when no one is around to judge him. It is his immaturity that makes him believe that he is being unique,

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

As Holden grows up more and more in New York, he needs his hat less and less, until he doesn’t need it at

The red hunting hat mirrors Holden’s resistance to conformity displaying his inner conflict of loneliness or companionship. Holden’s hat protects him and he feels that it gives him uniqueness as he does not agree with many of society’s standards. Salinger strategically places the hunting hat into situations where Holden feels awkward and uncomfortable. During these situations, Holden “puts [his] red hunting hat on, and [turns] the peak around the back the way [he] likes it” (59). The hat gives Holden the comfort and stability he desires in his life, as well as confident as he thinks that he “[looks] good in it” (21). However, the hat also isolates Holden in a protective bubble, restricting him from taking risks that he is not comfortable with. Holden is trying to get out into the world, yet it seems like the hat is holding him back

Sporting a plaid, red deer hunting hat, he would consistently pull the bill of the hat around to the back due to he insisted he looked better. The flaps would always stay down to cover his ears and would constantly be questioned why he was wearing a deer hunting hat when he was not hunting deer. Holden Caulfield, main character of J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, regularly dons a red deer hunting hat for the majority of the novel. The Catcher in the Rye is a coming-of-age novel showing how the main character spends his days between moving out of his private school and returning home to his parents in New York in his hunting hat. Caulfield must manage the constant changing of schools, underage drinking, and not following the crowd,

Throughout the novel, Holden seems to be excluded from and victimized by the world around him. As he says to Mr. Spencer, he feels trapped on “the other side” of life, and he continually attempts to find his way in a world in which he feels he doesn’t belong. The red hunting hat is a symbol of Holden’s individuality. As the novel progresses, we begin to perceive that Holden’s alienation is his way of protecting himself. Just as he wears his hunting hat to advertise his uniqueness, he uses his isolation as proof that he is better than everyone else around him and therefore above interacting with them, even though his perspective isn’t necessarily true. Throughout the text he puts on the hat to get a sense of security. He does this because, he lives in a world of “phonies”, and sometimes it is hard to retain all of your traits and characteristics.

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.

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

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

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