Hunting for a Piece of Childhood
(A Final Draft Essay on Symbolism)
"Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this
big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around nobody big, I mean - except me... I'd just be the catcher in the rye and
all."(173) Each and every one of us lives for his little piece of happiness and illusion. Holden,
the main character in J.D.Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, has never left his imaginary reality.
To have the strength to escape and the will to stay is something we often cannot handle by
ourselves, all of us having our various helpers. Holden's helper is the red hunting hat. He
introduces it to us in the very beginning of the novel, making it one of the objects which appears
most often. The red hunting hat is mentioned quite a few times, following a pattern, suggesting
that it is not just a random piece of clothing, but more of a symbol. Moreover, when Holden
gives his hat to Phoebe, he goes crazy and prays "don't let me disappear"(198) to his dead
brother. That shows the extreme importance of the hat to Holden in his trip from a child to an adult. Holden's red
hunting hat symbolizes the fight between himself, wanting to remain a child forever, using all the
protection it offers and keeping his individuality, and his betraying desire lingering in the back of
his head to hide his uniqueness and enter the adults' world.
Holden's red hunting hat symbolizes his desire to close his eyes to the fact that he must enter the
adult world some day and remain a child forever, using all the protection it offers, and yet be a
part of it in the adults' eyes with his unique personality.
When Holden watches Phoebe go around in the carousel, it starts raining and he himself
admits that his "red hunting hat really gave [him] a sort of protection, in a way"(212-213).
A hat is usually worn for protection of sun, rain, and wind, but in Holden's case it means
something much more important - protection from the world beyond childhood, where there
is no one to take care of him. Holden wears his red hunting hat when he needs security,
particularly when he leaves behind something precious to him. First of all, he wears it while
he is writing the composition for his dead brother's baseball mitt, a separation with a person
he loved a lot. He also puts it on when he leaves Pencey, desiring that it brings him
protection wherever he is going. He notes that he "put [his] red hunting hat on, and turned
the peak around to the back, the way [he] liked it, and then [he] yelled at the top of [his]
goddam voice, "Sleep tight, ya morons!" " (52). The hat gives him the strength to be
whoever he wants to be in a confused world of adults where people have no time and desire
to help one another.
Holden's red hunting hat hides the fact that his hair is actually gray underneath. This is a
play with colors, not just randomly chosen, but with a very specific meaning which reveals
Holden's fear of growing up. Gray hair symbolizes maturity and growing old, which Holden is
running away from for such a long time. The color of the hat, on the other side, is the
complete opposite in Holden's mind. It is red, the color of Allie's and Phoebe's hair - for
Holden it is a color of childhood and innocence. Holden had "quite a bit of gray hair" and
when he met a woman on a train he "shower her [his] gray hair" because it "fascinated the
hell out of her"(57) The fact that his personality is wandering between a child and an adult
suggests that he is physically ready for a change , but he does not want to accept it. Holden
is ready to show his adult side in situations in which it would give him some advantage, like
in this case, make him look older in front of a mother of one of the other students in
Pencey. However, he is afraid of the responsibility and falseness of adulthood, and that is
why he keeps running "as fast as [he] can... to the middle of nowhere"(Pink). His hiding of
his gray hair shows his situation - having power and being afraid to use it unless it is for a
little while and does gives him an advantage in the moment. Holden is made to realize he
cannot be a child forever, or pass with the excuse that he is a "madman" in front of the
world, which has expectations for him.
It is extremely unusual to see a person with a red hunting hat in everyday life, especially
"the way [Holden] liked it"(52), "the peak turned around to the back"(52). This hat and how
he wears it express Holden's individuality and desire to be unique, despite of his need of
socialization. When he wants to fit in and wants to hide his special personality, he does not
put his red hunting hat on, despite the fact that "it was cold as a witch's teat"(4). The red
color stands out in the crowd and makes Holden the first person a passer-by would notice.
Holden is seeking attention as any normal teenager is, but he refuses to accept it because
the part of him which is still a child classifies that as wrong, as the first sign of decay,
leading to adulthood. Also, he brags about the hat being a "people shooting hat"(22) in
front of Ackley, making him think that he is special and the only person with such a hat.
Holden is different enough from the others with his personality, but he is afraid to show it to
others except for Jane because he believes that he will not be accepted. This is why he tries
to be different with a piece of clothing - because if someone does not like his uniqueness, it
will always be the hat's fault, not his own. Holden wants to be different, but is afraid of it at
the same time, and the red hunting hat is a perfect excuse for being special "not on
purpose".
Even when Holden realizes that his cause and dream are "impossible", his red hunting
hat still helps him go through the hard experiences leading him to real adult life. When
Phoebe "reached in [his] coat pocket and took out [his] red hunting hat and put it on"
Holden's head shows us how Holden separates with his childhood through Phoebe, who is a
nine-year-old and is still more mature than Holden is. She realizes that it would be too hard
for him to forget about being a child forever without help, so she puts his red hunting hat on
him to make his journey as easy as possible. And the hat helps him again, as it has never
failed to - it leads him through his broken dreams to what he must accept.