Online Resources
- Read Online
- Study Guide: ENotes
- Study Guide: CourseHero
- Study Guide: SparkNotes
- YouTube Analysis from Wisecrack
- YouTube Analysis from CrashCourse: Part One, Part Two
A Journey with The Hat
The hat represent self-ego, prime, self-personalities
Chapter 3. Positive. [The hat appeared first time].
I took off my coat and my tie and unbuttoned my shirt collar; and then I put on this hat that I’d bought in New York that morning. It was this red hunting hat, with one of those very, very long peaks. I saw it in the window of this sports store when we got out of the subway, just after I noticed I’d lost all the goddam foils. It only cost me a buck. The way I wore it, I swung the old peak way around to the back very corny, I’ll admit, but I liked it that way.
Chapter 3. Positive. [The hat appeared first time].
Anyway, I put on my new hat and sat down and started reading that book Out of Africa.
Chapter 3. Positive.
What I did was, I pulled the old peak of my hunting hat around to the front, then pulled it way down over my eyes. That way, I couldn’t see a goddam thing.
Chapter 3. Positive. [Horse around with the hat].
I sort of closed one eye, like I was taking aim at it. “This is a people shooting hat,” I said. “I shoot people in this hat.”
Chapter 4. Neutral
Anyway, I was sitting on the washbowl next to where Stradlater was shaving, sort of turning the water on and off. I still had my red hunting hat on, with the peak around to the back and all. I really got a bang out of that hat.
Chapter 4. Neutral. [Seeking approval from others].
I was out of breath anyway, so I quit horsing around. I took off my hat and looked at it for about the ninetieth time. “I got it in New York this morning. For a buck. Ya like it?”
Chapter 4. Negative.
I pulled the peak of my hunting hat around to the front all of a sudden, for a change. I was getting sort of nervous, all of a sudden. I’m quite a nervous guy. “Listen, where ya going on your date with her?” I asked him. “Ya know yet?”
Chapter 5. Neutral. [Encouraging himself].
After he left, I put on my pajamas and bathrobe and my old hunting hat, and started writing the composition.
Chapter 6. Neutral. [Encouraging himself].
I kept sitting there on the floor till I heard old Stradlater close the door and go down the corridor to the can. Then I got up. I couldn’t find my goddam hunting hat anywhere. Finally I found it. It was under the bed. I put it on, and turned the old peak around to the back, the way I liked it, and then I went over and took a look at my stupid face in the mirror.
Chapter 7. Neutral. [Encouraging himself].
I put my red hunting hat on, and turned the peak around to the back, the way I liked it, and then I yelled at the top of my goddam voice, “Sleep tight, ya morons!”
Chapter 8. Neutral. [Encouraging himself].
He’d smacked my lip right on my teeth, and it was pretty sore. My ears were nice and warm, though. That hat I bought had earlaps in it, and I put them on I didn’t give a damn how I looked. Nobody was around anyway. Everybody was in the sack.
Chapter 8. Negative. [Hiding the hat]
I just sort of sat and not did anything. All I did was take off my hunting hat and put it in my pocket.
Chapter 10. Negative. [Talking about others’ hats]
The whole three of them were pretty ugly, and they all had on the kind of hats that you knew they didn’t really live in New York
They were so ignorant, and they had those sad, fancy hats on and all.
If somebody, some girl in an awful-looking hat, for instance, comes all the way to New York from Seattle, Washington, for God’s sake
Chapter 13. Neutral. [Frozen and angry]
But it was freezing cold, and I took my red hunting hat out of my pocket and put it on I didn’t give a damn how I looked. I even put the earlaps down. I wished I knew who’d swiped my gloves at Pencey, because my hands were freezing.
Chapter 13. Neutral. [Imply the prostitute had no personalities]
When I opened the door, this prostitute was standing there. She had a polo coat on, and no hat. She was sort of a blonde, but you could tell she dyed her hair.
Chapter 16. Neutral. [Poor people’s hats]
The father had on one of those pearl-gray hats that poor guys wear a lot when they want to look sharp. He and his wife were just walking along, talking, not paying any attention to their kid.
Chapter 16. Neutral.
I took my old hunting hat out of my pocket while I walked, and put it on. I knew I wouldn’t meet anybody that knew me, and it was pretty damp out.
Chapter 17. Neutral. [Old Sally hardly wore a hat]
Finally, old Sally started coming up the stairs, and I started down to meet her. She looked terrific. She really did. She had on this black coat and sort of a black beret. She hardly ever wore a hat, but that beret looked nice.
Chapter 20. Negative. [The hat-check room]
When I finally got down off the radiator and went out to the hat-check room, I was crying and all.
She was nice, though. I showed her my goddam red hunting hat, and she liked it. She made me put it on before I went out, because my hair was still pretty wet. She was all right.
Chapter 21. Negative.
I’d already taken off my hunting hat, so as not to look suspicious or anything.
Chapter 23. Positive
Then I took my hunting hat out of my coat pocket and gave it to her. She likes those kind of crazy hats. She didn’t want to take it, but I made her. I’ll bet she slept with it on. She really likes those kind of hats. Then I told her again I’d give her a buzz if I got a chance, and then I left.
Chapter 25. Neutral
Finally, I saw her. I saw her through the glass part of the door. The reason I saw her, she had my crazy hunting hat on you could see that hat about ten miles away.
Chapter 25. Neutral
She wouldn’t answer me. All she did was, she took off my red hunting hat the one I gave her and practically chucked it right in my face. Then she turned her back on me again.
Chapter 25. Neutral. [Cowboy hat from a boy]
There was a little kid standing next to me, with a cowboy hat on practically over his ears, and he kept telling his father, “Make him come out, Daddy. Make him come out.”
Chapter 25. Negative.
Then what she did it damn near killed me she reached in my coat pocket and took out my red hunting hat and put it on my head.
Chapter 25. Positive.
I got pretty soaking wet, especially my neck and my pants. My hunting hat really gave me quite a lot of protection, in a way; but I got soaked anyway. I didn’t care, though. I felt so damn happy all of sudden, the way old Phoebe kept going around and around. I was damn near bawling, I felt so damn happy, if you want to know the truth.
The Museum of Natural History
Even though it was Sunday and Phoebe wouldn’t be there with her class or anything, and even though it was so damp and lousy out, I walked all the way through the park over to the Museum of Natural History. I knew that was the museum the kid with the skate key meant. I knew that whole museum routine like a book. Phoebe went to the same school I went to when I was a kid, and we used to go there all the time.
I get very happy when I think about it. Even now. I remember after we looked at all the Indian stuff, usually we went to see some movie in this big auditorium. . . . Nobody gave too much of a damn about old Columbus, but you always had a lot of candy and gum and stuff with you, and the inside of that auditorium had such a nice smell. It always smelled like it was raining outside, even if it wasn’t, and you were in the only nice, dry, cosy place in the world.
The best thing, though, in that museum was that everything always stayed right where it was. Nobody’d move. You could go there a hundred thousand times, and that Eskimo would still be just finished catching those two fish, the birds would still be on their way south, the deers would still be drinking out of that water hole, with their pretty antlers and their pretty, skinny legs, and that squaw with the naked bosom would still be weaving that same blanket.
Nobody’d be different. The only thing that would be different would be you. Not that you’d be so much older or anything. It wouldn’t be that, exactly. You’d just be different, that’s all.
I kept walking and walking, and I kept thinking about old Phoebe going to that museum on Saturdays the way I used to. I thought how she’d see the same stuff I used to see, and how she’d be different every time she saw it. It didn’t exactly depress me to think about it, but it didn’t make me feel gay as hell, either. Certain things they should stay the way they are. You ought to be able to stick them in one of those big glass cases and just leave them alone.
The Ducks in the Central Park Lagoon
I was thinking about the lagoon in Central Park, down near Central Park South. I was wondering if it would be frozen over when I got home, and if it was, where did the ducks go. I was wondering where the ducks went when the lagoon got all icy and frozen over. I wondered if some guy came in a truck and took them away to a zoo or something.
“You know those ducks in that lagoon right near Central Park South? That little lake? By any chance, do you happen to know where they go, the ducks, when it gets all frozen over? Do you happen to know, by any chance?”
He was a much better guy than the other driver I’d had. Anyway, I thought maybe he might know about the ducks. . . . [“]Do you know, by any chance? I mean does somebody come around in a truck or something and take them away, or do they fly away by themselves—go south or something?”
I figured I’d go by that little lake and see what the hell the ducks were doing, see if they were around or not. I still didn’t know if they were around or not. It wasn’t far over to the park, and I didn’t have any place else special to go to—I didn’t even know where I was going to sleep yet—so I went. I wasn’t tired or anything. I just felt blue as hell.
Then, finally, I found it. What it was, it was partly frozen and partly not frozen. But I didn’t see any ducks around. I walked all around the whole damn lake—I damn near fell in once, in fact—but I didn’t see a single duck. I thought maybe if there were any around, they might be asleep or something near the edge of the water, near the grass and all.