Ears:

Holden tends to observe and remember words or sayings of the past, which in the end, affect him greatly. His persona of “not caring about what others say”, is soon dismissed by the reader as disengenious. For example; the red hunter hat that he repeatedly takes on and off, becomes a safety blanket. When alone and isolated from public display, his hat is shown and Holden claims he “[doesn’t] give a damn how [he] looks” (53). Noticing Holden’s conscious over the hat, when Ackley critically mentions, “thats a deer shooting hat” (22), the hat comes off. The sponge is supposed to symbolize the way Holden absorbs others words, but then becomes emotionally fixated on them, as the conversations about his hunting hat, with his friends, seriously effected his actions.