Holden's Red Hunting Hat
Irony - Holden just berated Mr. Spencer for being the kind of old guy that "can get a big bang out of buying
a [Navajo] blanket,"
On one level, the hat hints that Holden has the same characteristics he judges in others.
Buys hat in New York that morning after he left all the fencing equipment on the subway and pissed off the
entire team.
feeling particularly vulnerable at the time, though he would never admit to such a state as vulnerability.
When does Holden wear the hat and when doesn't he?
 puts the hat on at important moments
 writing the composition about Allie's baseball mitt
 staring at himself in the mirror and pretending to be tough after Stradlater punches him
 yelling "Sleep tight, ya morons" down the corridor, etc.




takes it off when:
he's on the train
going to a bar
going into hotel lobbies, etc
While he's all about the hat in private, he's embarrassed or lacking confidence to wear it in public.



("I took my red hunting hat […] and put it on – I didn't give a damn how I looked") – Chapter 13
("I took my old hunting hat out […] and put it on. I knew I wouldn't meet anybody that knew me") –
Chapter 16
"I'd already taken off my hunting hat, so as not to look suspicious")- Chapter 21
The hunting hat becomes an important part of the way Holden sees himself.
He admits it's "corny," but he personally "like[s] how it look[s]."
It's a people shooting hat, he declares.
When he's wearing it, he can be as insular and tough and as unique as he wants.
Significant when Phoebe puts it on his head at the end of the novel
not only is she giving back to Holden, but she's demonstrating that she loves him as the individual that he
is – corny red hunting hat and all.
Ducks, Fish, and Other Wildlife

Holden worries about where the ducks go when it's winter.

Afraid of the ducks dying. Holden's obsession.
When he goes to the lagoon and looks to look for the ducks, he starts thinking about his own death, and
then reflects on Allie.
Holden is a boy plagued with thoughts of death
1

has experienced death on a personal level more than once (with both Allie and James Castle)



How do people explain the unexplainable? What kinds of things comfort us?
Some solace in religion (like the two nuns, or the Quaker student that he knew at school)
Some us romanticized logic (like the cab driver who insists that, obviously, mother nature would take
care of the fish – and the ducks)

Not Holden.

Holden equates death with disappearing.
It isn't just that Allie's dead, it's that he's disappeared under the ground.

When Holden crosses the street and begs Allie not to let him disappear, he's in asking not to die.

If Holden indeed expressed a death wish earlier (he mentioned jumping out the window, his thoughts
about the atomic bomb), then this scene is the counter to that.

As much as he might drop the suicide thought in moments of anger and pain, he doesn't really want to
die; he's actually incredibly scared by the thought (hence the sweating and difficulty breathing and
so forth).
The Mummies
Mummies die, but they don’t disappear.
Enthusiastic when he explains the process of mummification to two younger boys
mummies are blatantly representative of death, but rather than get depressed by the obvious morbidity of the
subject matter, Holden is fascinated by the thought that some things stay as they are.
Ties in with his desire for unchanging and perpetual youth
The Museum (And the Indian Room)
the inevitable passing of time and the changes that it brings.
 source of depression for Holden
 he doesn't like that everything has to change, that everyone has to grow up.
 "Certain things […] you ought to be able to stick […] in one of those big glass cases and just leave
them alone,"
Compares Indian Room at the museum (where the displays always stay the same) and the children (who are
always changing) who visit on field trips.
Note: Holden says that while the displays stay the same, a person is different every time he comes back to
visit. But he makes the point that it's not so much about getting older as it is about becoming different.
Holden does not fear getting older, it's the changes one goes through in order to become an adult.
The Little Shirley Beans Record
2
The paradox of singer, Estelle Fletcher singing it as "very Dixieland and whorehouse [… not] all mushy,
[…not] cute as hell," as he thinks a white girl would have done.



At first, sounds rather odd. Why is Holden into a record that sounds Dixieland and whorish, when
he's buying it for his little sister and is troubled by the thought of sexuality invading the world of
children?
Holden is trying to avoid phoniness. The record is clearly intended for children/
Holden figures that most people, if singing a record for little children, would cheese it up, make it
cute, mushy, and phony because they think that's what little kids are into.
Holden prefers Estelle's rendition, because it lacks this sort of pretense.
Phoebe's Notebook, and Even More About Holden's Narrative Technique, Though We All Thought
That Wasn't Possible
 finds it endearing, states that "kids notebooks kill [him]," and adds that he could "read that kind of
stuff […] all day and all night long."
 What does he like so much about it?
Why has south eastern Alaska so many caning factories?
Because there's so much salmon
Why has it valuable forests?
because it has the right climate.
What has our government done to make
life easier for the Alaskan Eskimos?
look it up for tomorrow!!!
Phoebe Weatherfield Caulfield
Phoebe Weatherfield Caulfield
Phoebe Weatherfield Caulfield
Phoebe W. Caulfield
Phoebe Weatherfield Caulfield, Esq.
Please pass to Shirley!!!!
Shirley you said you were sagitarius
but your only Taurus bring your skates
when you come over to my house

Phoebe's notebook is the least phony expression of thought in the novel up to this point.



lack of pretension and falsity
Phoebe simply wrote exactly what she was thinking.
(Anyone older might be embarrassed about the fact that they're making up a new middle name for
themselves, or too reserved to use triple exclamation points.)



Question: Is Holden a phony? Think about it.
The presentation of his narrative in The Catcher in the Rye: it's completely honest.
While he lies to others about his age, he openly admits to us things like, "I have a lousy vocabulary"
and "I act quite young for my age sometimes."
(If he does lie to us, it doesn't feel manipulative or intentional, rather subconscious and accidental.)

3

It can be argued that Holden's narrative is like Phoebe's notebook. It's just what some kid happens to
be thinking.
The "F___ you" Signs On the Walls
more bothered by the locations– on the wall at Phoebe's school and in the once-sacred tomb in the museum.
places that remind him of his own childhood, that would made him feel secure and comfortable
corrupted by vulgarities.
Even his own death, he says, couldn't be sacred or peaceful, since someone would probably write a "fuck
you" on his very tombstone.
Interesting: Who do you think really wrote on the walls?
Holden can’t fathom this: in his world, children are innocent and adults corrupt.
Note: While this keeps everything nice and simple in Holden's mind, it also makes it impossible for him to
really understand sexuality and the process of growing-up. While he does come to the realization that trying
to rub out all the "fuck you"s in the world would be an impossible task (as there are just too many), he
doesn't make the important connection that it would be futile anyway. Children will grow up and
experience sex, whether he likes it or not.
Phoebe, the Carousel, and the Gold Ring
only one place in the entire novel where Holden declares himself to be really happy.
She just looks so nice, he says, in her blue coat, going around and around.
1) Holden decided that, after all, he's not going to run away
2) Phoebe put his hunting hat back on his head
3) Holden has realizes that growing up isn't the worst thing in the world. (this is debatable)
Historically, gold ring – on all carousels - if you grabbed it, you got a free ride.
Phoebe's grabbing for the gold ring, and Holden's thought that "the thing with kids is, if they want to grab for
the gold ring, you have to let them do it, and not say anything. If they fall off, they fall off, but it's bad if you
say anything to them."
admitting that growing up is in fact necessary – for Phoebe and for himself; you can't really protect a kid
from it, so it's better to just accept it as it is.
4