One may believe that a simple red hunting hat would be just an item of clothing, but, throughout the novel The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger proves that a hat may be used for more than just warming its owner’s head. The hat’s owner is Holden Caulfield, a high school dropout that roams around the city of New York attempting to find purpose in life, to escape reality, and to run away from the responsibilities of adulthood. Holden first introduces the hat as a basic hunting hat that he bought in New York for only a dollar (29). Salinger gradually develops the symbol of the red hunting hat as an expression of Holden’s nonconformity, his ideas about phoniness, and his protection.
