Symbolize

J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye portrays a sixteen-year-old boy, stuck between adolescence and adulthood, who struggles to find his place in society. Holden Caulfield draws the reader in with his unpredictable actions and his frank judgements and opinions of the world. Throughout the novel Holden tries to protect his innocence and views the adult world as "phony." Salinger seems to be asking the question that to become an adult is it necessary to accept the fact that some things, like death, lie outside a person’s control? The author implies that a person needs to balance life and death and portrays this concept through two important symbols: Holden’s brother Allie's baseball glove and the red hunting hat.
Allie’s left handed baseball fielder’s glove is important to Holden. Holden feels Allie’s presence even though Allie has been gone for three years. Allie’s glove was a symbol of death and how sometimes it’s beyond human control and Salinger was trying to explain that no one really dies if you don’t want them to, you cannot make them live, but you can treasure what was. “I slept in the garage the night he died, and broke all the goddamn windows with my fist, just for the hell of it” (44). Holden was very distraught over something that he couldn’t control, like death. It was the beginning of Holden’s negative personality to the society. Holden feels Allie’s presence throughout the novel feels Allie’s death curse him, a guilt living with Holden knowing that he could not control Allie’s death.
As the novel opens up, “I swung that old peek back- very corny, I'll admit, but I liked it that way. I looked good in it that way” (18). Holden is proud of his hunting hat, though others find it weird. It tells the reader the Holden’s attractions to unique qualities and people. It’s something that Holden can control, it’s the symbol of life in the novel. Holden enjoys to wear the hat with the bill facing the back of his head, like a baseball catcher would.