J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye tells an unforgettable story of teenage angst by highlighting the life of Holden Caulfield, a young boy who commences a journey of self-discovery after being expelled from his private boarding school. Throughout the novel, Holden struggles with issues such as self-identity, loss, and a wavering sense of belonging. Holden’s red hunting hat is consistently used throughout the story as a symbol of his independence and his attachment to his childhood. From the very moment he receives it, Holden’s red hunting hat becomes a symbol of his own alienation. After traveling to New York for a fencing match and losing the team’s equipment on the subway, Holden is outcast by his teammates, who are angry that he hindered Holden is also aware of the image the hat projects to others, and he often takes it off when he is around someone familiar. This functions as a metaphor for Holden’s struggle between his need for independence and his need for companionship. Holden doesn’t want people he knows to see him with the hat on because he wants them to continue to be friends with him, and he fears loneliness. However, when nobody is around, Holden has no problem wearing the hat and embracing its quirkiness, because he feels a strong connection to the hat. As he is walking down the street in the middle of the night, Holden states that “It was freezing cold, and I took my red hunting hat out of my pocket and put it on--I didn 't give a damn how I looked. I even put the earlaps down” (Salinger 88). Here, Holden doesn’t care how he looks because the only people who might spot him on the desolate street are strangers to him. His image around strangers doesn’t faze him as much as his image around people his is familiar Spencer, having been told he has been expelled from Pencey, he seeks solace in his red hunting hat. In this scene, Holden states that he “swung the old peak way around to the back – very corny, I’ll admit, but I like it that way. I looked good in it that way” (Salinger 18). Here, the reader is given a glimpse into Holden’s feelings toward his hunting hat. He understands that the hat is quirky and mostly unattractive, but he connects with it in a way because he feels that, just like his hat, he is an outcast and an oddity. Holden feels that the hat looks “good” on him because he and his hat possess similar qualities, and he feels that the hat suits his personality. It is also clear that Holden feels a sense of protection when he is wearing the hat, probably because he feels a strong connection with it. After his fight with Stradlater in the dorm room, Holden immediately seeks comfort and protection with his favorite hat. Holden states, “I couldn’t find my goddam hunting hat anywhere. Finally I found it. It was under the bed. I put it on, and turned the old peak around to the back, the way I like it, and then I went over and took a look at my stupid face in the mirror” (Salinger 45). Holden puts the hat on before checking to see the extent of his injuries in the mirror. This action makes it clear that Holden sees the hat as a symbol of
The red hunting hat was exchanged between Holden and Phoebe as a sign of reassurance that Holden will watch over and protect her. Another example is, Holden’s goal in life to become a catcher in the rye in order to protect his sister from falling off “the cliff,” which is a representation of the loss of innocence which can occur as a result of trauma. Trauma effects everyone at some point in their life, and understand the importance of it, and how to cope with the realities of life will only
Holden’s hat allows him to show and hide his emotions. Holden uses his hunting hat to speak freely and emotionally about his brother in an essay for Stradlater. After Holden gets back from being out with Brossard and Ackley he sits down to write a composition about Allie. Before he does this, he “put on [his] pajamas and bathrobe and [his] old hunting hat,” (37). Holden puts on his hunting hat so that he can write about his brother who died three years before this story takes place. Holden would not normally wear his hat to bed, so we can assume that he doesn’t wear it as a part of his pajamas. Putting it on before he writes an essay about his brother suggests that he put it on for that reason. At another time Holden uses h...
Catcher in the Rye is one of the most famous books in American literature. Written by J. D. Salinger, it captures the epitome of adolescence through Salinger’s infamous anti-hero, Holden Caulfield. Holden Caulfield learns about himself and his negative tendencies, and realizes that if he does not do something to change his perspective, he may end up like his acquaintance James Castle whom he met at Elkton Hills. Holden tries to find help to mend his outlook on life through Mr. Antolini so he does not end up like James, who did not want to face the problems he created for himself. This is proven by the similarities between James Castle and Holden, Mr. Antolini’s willingness to try and help Holden, and Holden’s future being forecasted by James.
In the beginning of the novel, Holden believes that the world is out to get him, so he alienates himself for protection. A way to do so, he brings forth his hunting hat, “‘This is a people shooting hat,’ I said. ‘I shoot people in this hat.’” (Salinger, 22) Holden’s hunting hat is the strongest symbol in the novel. It gives Holden protection from people who could be potentially harmful to him. Whenever he is afraid or anxious he regresses and puts on his hunting hat for comfort. This anxiety is triggered by memories from his past. The world has stepped on him and beat him down, so now he uses his hunting hat to symbolize his independence and alienation from the world. He consciously knows that the hat will not physically protect him, but, “the nihilist does not believe in the necessity of being logical.” (“On the Pathos of Truth”) So, since he doesn’t need to be logical, he uses the hunting hat regardless if it is actually going to work or not. Holden feels disconnected to the world in the beginning of the novel. Holden states that he feels trapped on “the other side of life.” (Salinger, 8) When Holden says this, he is in a distressed point in his life because he has recently just been expelled from his fourth school. The expulsion could be a reason why he feels so disconnected, but since this didn’t happen during his last expulsions, he
The distance that Holden makes sure to keep in place isolates him from others and manifests in curious actions and mannerisms. One example could be the red hunting hat, which advertises his uniqueness and also gives him a sense of protection. Holden explains to Ackley that his red hat is not a “deer shooting hat” but a “people shooting hat”. Out of all the mentions of the red hat in the novel, this is the most enlightening. Holden uses the hat as a sign of individuality and independence; this hat serves as another way Holden is able to isolate himself from the rest of the world. The red hat serves as symbol for Holden’s desperate desire for independence and his distaste for conformity. Although Holden does not kill anyone in the novel, he does “shoot people” in his own cynical way by spending all of his time and energy belittling the people around
In the beginning of the novel, Holden says to Mr. Spencer he feels trapped on the “other side of life.” This clearly demonstrates how Holden doesn’t feel that he belongs in the world he lives in. Holden has his hunting hat as a source of protection. Holden buys a red hunting hat in New York for a dollar. The hat has a very long peak, and Holden wears it backwards with the peak aiming behind him. “…I swung the old peak way around to the back-very corny, I’ll admit, but I liked it that way” (17), Holden explains. Holden puts his hat on when he’s under a lot of stress. The hunting hat not only symbolizes protection, but it also symbolizes Holden’s uniqueness and individuality. Holden doesn’t wear his hat because it’s fashionable, but only to keep his individuality and to feel safe. In the cab Holden put his hat on and says, “I’d put my red hunting hat when I was in the cab, just for the hell of it, but I took it off before I checked in” (61). This quote illustrates how Holden thinks it’s necessary to wear the hat in order to feel safe. But at the same time, Holde...
...orld. Holden distanced himself by wearing this hat. Holden doesn’t want to be a part of the society and created this symbol to isolate from it.
In J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye, the main character Holden Caufield believes that innocence is corrupted by society. He exposes his self-inflicted emotional struggles as he is reminiscing the past. For Holden, teenage adolescence is a complicated time for him, his teenage mentality in allows him to transition from the teenage era to the reality of an adult in the real world. As he is struggling to find his own meaning of life, he cares less about others and worries about how he can be a hero not only to himself but also to the innocent youth. As Holden is grasping the idea of growing up, he sets his priorities of where he belongs and how to establish it. As he talks about how ‘phony’ the outside world is, he has specific recollections that signify importance to his life and he uses these time and time again because these memories are ones that he wont ever let go of. The death of his younger brother Allie has had a major impact on him emotionally and mentally. The freedom of the ducks in Central Park symbolize his ‘get away’ from reality into his own world. His ideology of letting kids grow up and breaking the chain loose to discover for themselves portrays the carrousel and the gold ring. These are three major moments that will be explored to understand the life of Holden Caufield and his significant personal encounters as he transitions from adolescence into manhood.
Holden’s red hunting cap is a symbol for the unique inequalities he finds in objects and in people. On a Saturday morning after Holden lost the fencing equipment, he came across this unusual hat in a window of a Sports Store. This unique hat Holden picked out for a dollar has red floppy ears and an oddly shaped bill. In the novel, most people wouldn’t match Holden’s personality to the red hunting cap he wears all throughout the novel. While wearing this cap, Holden saw it as a reading cap. The novel lets it known to the readers
He sees people in many different ways. The people that the average people would see as cool, he calls phonies but the people who one would normally ignore, he relates to. Holden cannot stand most people and sees the fakeness in people. This is one of the reasons he wants to be different. He uses the hat as a way as sticking out from the phonies and the average person. He has a need to be different. He points out his hunting hat to many different people, one of them being his roommate, Stradlater. He tells the audience, “I put on this hat that I’d bought in New York that morning. It was this red hunting hat, with one of those very, very long peaks” and “The way I wore it, I swung the old peak way around to the back—very corny, I'll admit, but I liked it that way. I looked good in it that way”(Salinger 17). He knows that the hat was weird but he still wanted to wear
While in New York with the fencing team, Holden loses all of their equipment, then buys a red hunting hat. Holden describes the hat as a, “red hunting hat, with one of those very, very, very long peaks… The way I wore it, I swung the old peak way around back - very corny, I’ll admit, but I liked it that way.”(Salinger, 24) The hat makes him stand out and seem like a unique person.
Allie’s baseball mitt is a very important symbol in the novel. It is connected to the novel, because the heart of the novel is Holden's grief over his brother's death and his inability to accept it. When Holden finds out that his brother Allie died, he is in denial because he refuses to accept Allie’s death. Holden is in denial because he thinks why his innocent brother had to die and not him. Because Holden needs help dealing with this grief he must always take out the mitt, and acknowledge his feelings over Allie in order to release himself from the guilt he feels. When Holden’s roommate at Pencey, Stradlater, asks him to write a descriptive essay, Holden writes about Allie’s baseball mitt. Holden treats the mitt differentially, taking it with him to Pencey and copying “down the poems that were written on it” (Salinger 38). For Holden, t...
Indeed, just the naming of his red hunting cap as a “people-shooting hat” is suspicious enough; but Holden merely wants to stand out in a crowd and be different from all the phonies around him, and the unique hat is enough to do so, despite it making him look foolish. He is going “people-shooting” in the sense that he is putting down partisans of the supposedly fabricated adult world, the same people who put Holden down for his visible immaturity. The cap gives Holden the confidence he needs to feel like his own independent person – an adult – without actually being one. This is yet another one of Holden’s desperate attempts to cling onto whatever shred of youth and innocence he has left and avoid growing
A big trait in Holden’s character is the stubbornness. Holden is not willing to accept his problems in addition to let others help him. It is equally important to realize that Holden’s stubbornness is fatal to changing, otherwise growing up. One of the first symbols introduced is Holden’s red hunting hat. “This is a people shooting hat. I shoot people in this hat. (3.31)” gives signs that this hat is a way to alienate himself from the world. When Holden articulates it is for shooting people; shooting really means calling them phonies to only stubbornly protect himself from the outer world. Proceeding to Holden’s visit to Phoebe’s school, the f**k you signs on the wall are a way of representing the negative influences on kids. Holden’s stubbornness is shown when he attempts to erase them off the wall, although states “you couldn’t rub out even half the ‘F**k You’ signs in the world.(25.18)” The symbol’s meaning towards the story is understood that it’d be pointless to erase even all of the negative influences in the world because they’d just re-appear, except the protagonist cannot accept the reality of the situation. Jumping right to the end of the novel, when Phoebe ...
In the novel, The Catcher In The Rye, Holden Caulfield buys an odd red hunting hat in New York City. He believes the hat is a bargain since he only paid $1 for it. The red hunting hat has a large amount of significance in the book. The symbolism behind the red hat is Holden’s attraction to unusual items. This attraction to unusual items shows his uniqueness and individuality. It also shows his constant need to be different and isolated from others. The need form Holden to be different and isolated from others is one of the central conflicts in the story.