ATDTDA (2): Headwear in ATD? (pp. 1 - 44)
Tim Strzechowski
dedalus204 at comcast.net
Thu Feb 8 10:18:18 CST 2007
What's with all the hats?
The Bindlestiffs of the Blue are described as wearing "headgear which had failed to achieve the simpler geometry of the well-known Shriner fez, being far more ornate and, even in its era, arguably not in the best of taste. There was an oversize spike, for example, coming out the top, German style, and a number of plumes dyed a pale eclipse green" (p. 18).
The cheerful Negro three-card monte player wears a "pork pie" hat (p. 23).
Chevrolette McAdoo wears her hat "roguishly atilt, egret plumes swooping each time she move[s] her head" (p. 26).
Professor Heino Vanderjuice wears a stovepipe hat "whose dents, scars, and departures from the cylindrical [speak] as eloquently as its outdated style of a long and adventuresome history" (p. 29). During the meeting with Scarsdale Vibe he is left holding his hat "as an insecure young actor might a 'prop' " (p. 31), and by the end of the chapter we still see him "left to stare into the depths of his ancient hat, as if it were a vestiary expression of his present situation" (pp. 34-5).
In the Pump Room we see "couples in boutonnieres and ostrich-plume hats" (p. 33), and when Lew Basnight arrives in Chicago, "a close business associate followed, confronted, and publicly denounced him, knocking his hat off" (p. 37). Later, as he finds his way thru the Chicago streets, he encounters a wide variety of exotic folks, some wearing "summer caps and straw hats" (p. 39).
In the final section of Chapter Five, we see a Chicago street scene in which a "rolled umbrella dented a bowler hat" (p. 42), Lew notices someone in a carriage wearing a slouch hat, and once in the employ of White City Investigations he sees the "resources for disguise," including "forests of hatracks bearing an entire Museum of Hat History" (p. 43).
So I ask:
Is Pynchon merely capturing the fashion of the time period here? Or are hats a typical image that he employs in all his novels (I cannot recall this image being so so abundantly in his previous novels, but perhaps I'm mistaken)? Is there something significant in his repeated use of describing characters here in terms of their headwear? Is there literary symbolism in in general regarding hats?
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