In The Catcher in the Rye there are a couple symbols being mentioned throughout the book in which I find to be very unclear about what J.D. Salinger wants us to understand from them. One of them being Holden Cauflied's "People shooting hat" and the other being his fixation with where the ducks went when the ponds froze over. It's safe to say that these aren't just small details that J.D. Salinger simply added randomly in his novel. He meant for these symbols to represent a higher symbolic characterization to Holden Caufield.
The "People shooting hat" I believe represents Holden's individuality. He never puts his hat on when he's around people he knows which can mean that he doesn't want people to know the real him. Right off the bat we knew that he was more reserved in the way that he wants to be the only person to know his true self, he doesn't want his life to be an open book which is part of the reason why he lies so frequently and to such an extreme. The hat is both a shield for his soul and a way to stand out.
The duck leaving the pond symbolizes Holden's state of limbo between childhood and adulthood. The pond freezes over and where do the ducks go? Holden is the ducks and the pond is life. When he is too mature to be a child, yet too immature to be an adult, what is he?
He's a lost soul and these symbols pull his spirit together and make him whole by reassuring his self-proclaimed humanity.
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