Holden's Red Hunting Cap

           Most of us have probably experienced J.D. Salinger’s 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye sometime in our schooling. Personally, I really enjoyed reading The Catcher in the Rye in my Junior year AP Lit class. But for those of you that didn’t appreciate it as much as I did (future English teacher probs), don’t worry, I’m only going to discuss one symbol within the novel: Holden’s red hunting cap.

            The red hunting cap is first seen when Holden buys this hat for $1 after he disappoints his school fencing team by losing all of their equipment. This is the starting point where Holden begins to use his hat as a form of protection. Many times in the novel we see Holden putting on his hat when he is under a lot of stress. He uses the hat to comfort himself in a way, after he fails to help out his team. Holden also has been expelled from the fourth school in a row, and leaves Pencey Prep a few days earlier than he is supposed to. And again we see the hat when Holden leaves his school. He puts the red hat back on as he embarks on a new journey all by himself, which shows how Holden uses it as a way to comfort him on this scary and new part of his life.

Holden also sees his red hunting cap as a form of protection from the world and from adulthood. As the book progresses, you can start to see how Holden uses his hat to show a form of innocence. The color red itself in the book represents the idea of Holden’s childhood. Holden’s younger siblings have bright red hair and he brings them up a lot throughout the novel. Allie, his younger brother that passed away at the age of 11, and Phoebe, his little sister, are Holden’s favorite people in the novel. Allie and Phoebe are two of the few people that Holden really respects and loves in his life. The color of the hat itself makes Holden feel connected with his deceased brother and his younger sister.

Holden is worried that one-day Phoebe will grow up and become an adult just like he has to do at this point in his life. There’s a part towards the end of the novel where Holden tries to give Phoebe his red hunting cap. Holden had believed that the cap had protected him from the world, and hopes that the hat will do the same for her. He gives it to her because Holden wants to keep his little sister’s innocence pristine and in tact for as long as possible.

Lastly, we see Holden wearing the hat in the rain when he was at the zoo with Phoebe. He realizes that the hat doesn’t help protect him from the rain and realizes that nothing is going to protect him from adulthood forever. In the same way, Holden comes to see that he cannot stop children from growing up. Even though his red hunting hat is used to protect his innocence and the innocence of others, this protection won’t last forever. This is when Holden realizes that he will have to face the problem of growing up, and finally gets rid of his red hat.

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Works Cited

                                               http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/catcher/themes.html