Being the good little English majors we are, we have decided to team up to write and article demonstrating just how carried away the analysis of literary symbolism can get in some instances. We did a Google search for "random objects" in order to choose our victim. The transition from italics to normal text and back represents the change in authorship.

Ah the infamous fedora. Of course, this would be the third image to come up on a search of "random objects". Maybe the ups and downs in the hat represent the ups and downs that life brings. Or the varying feelings and attitudes towards the unique style of the fedora.

Fedoras are tricky. It all depends on the context in which the fedora is being worn. In one scenario, tall dark male figure steps out of an ally wearing, you guessed it, a brown fedora. In another, a small child lost his father to a gang violence. All he has left of him is the brown fedora he was wearing the day of his death. This fedora now sits turned over on the sidewalk collecting money as the boy weeps and begs.

In your first scenario, you are proposing that the fedora is a status symbol as well as a disguise for this man, as it partially hides his face. So the brown fedora could be a warning. While the color may not be significant in the first scenario, it can definitely be applied to the second. For example, his father is now buried in the ground, which is brown, and this destitute and poor child is covered in dirt as he is living on the streets. Brown is also a color that traditionally symbolizes security and stability, kind of like a tree.

Or like one's parents or family unit!

Precisely. This brown color in the hat reminds the boy of better days, when his family was whole and he was not left to wander the streets and await death in the cold winter.

My thoughts exactly. Back to what you said about the status symbol, would the fedora represent wealth or would it be cheap as many are sold in affordable stores such as Wal-Mart or The Dollar Tree. I'm thinking it's probably more towards a lack of wealth. This creepy man desires to appear wealthy as part of a disguise, but in reality he is far from it.

Maybe the status being displayed is not related to wealth at all. Perhaps it is representing occupation. Maybe this man coming out of the alley because that is where the exit is to the jazz club he plays his saxophone at on the weekends.

Or maybe his occupation is that he was the mob boss that killed the little boy's father!

But why would the boy have the fedora then?

True, I'm getting too crazy over here.

Also, mob bosses never execute their own hits.

Ah very true. The fedora appears to be made from a soft fabric, perhaps even fuzzy now that I gaze closely at it. Fuzzy and soft are often associated with love, another lead back into the father.

Going back into love with the first example, perhaps this is alluding to lost love. Maybe this man has lost someone valuable to him, such as a spouse. That is why he now spends his freetime playing saxaphone in this jazzclub.

Or maybe this is why he is a gangster. He is out seeking revenge upon whomever took his dear wife away from him.

Observe the stitching on the fedora, it was clearly done by a machine so it was either done after the invention of the sewing machine, or someone slaved night and day over this hat to get the stitching absolutely perfect, which would make it of incredibly high quality.

That could change the symbolism completely. Maybe the little boy's mother made that hat for the father before she fell victim to the small pox epidemic that riddled their town. So now the fedora is all that he has left of both his parents.

But when did fedoras first start getting made? I have googled the history of fedoras and it was a women's hat in 1882.

82. That was a great year, I remember it well.

Stop it. The point I'm making is that if this child was living before the 20th century, this could have been his mother's hat and if it was his mother's hat then she could have been the one killed by someone like a mill operator or an angry ex lover.

We're getting a little out of hand now. But since we're already there, going back to the first example, maybe the hat belonged to the lover that has left the strange man in the alley. Seems a bit odd though for a man's head to fit inside of a woman's hat.

Dawh he has a little baby head.

Oh my god this is too much. We need to stop this now.

Agreed. Until next time, dear friend.

So basically until tomorrow in class. Excellent.