Holden takes off his hunting hat because he wants to just sit and not do anything, so he must feel that wearing his hat would be doing something. He takes off his hat because when he left Pencey he took charge of his life a little bit, and in turn grew up a bit. Another time that Holden speaks of taking off his hat is when he is checking into the Edmont Hotel. “I’d put on my red hunting cap when I was in the cab, just for the hell of it, but I’d took it off before I checked in. I didn’t want to look like a screwball or something” (61). Holden realizes that while his hat may have helped him in Pencey, it won’t help him in New York. After he has grown up ever so little by leaving Pencey, he continues to grow up by realizing that his hat is inappropriate in an adult situation such as checking into a hotel. After he decreases the frequency with which he wears his hat he finally stops wearing it altogether, of his own free will. When Holden is leaving Ernie’s bar he shows his hat to the hat-check girl; “I showed her my goddam hunting hat, and she liked it. She made me put it on before I went out” (153). Holden doesn’t think that he needs his hat anymore, he says that the hat-check girl “made [him] put it on,” implying that he would not have ordinarily. Holden has grown up so much in that past night that he has outgrown his hat.In growing up Holden realizes that his hat does not have any kind of power to make change him, but that his thinking so was only a manifestation of his mind; realizing this he gives his hat to his sister, who in turn returns it to him, upon this return he discovers that the manifestation of his mind actually helped him to grow up. After Holden leaves Ernie’s bar he goes to central Peak to look for the ducks. On his hunt for these ducks he walks around, and almost falls into, their pond. After that he simply sits down on a bench ...
