The story is set about 1950s and narrated by a young man named Holden Caulfield, who is in a period which he lives at the edge of reality. He constantly and willingly isolates himself from the society to construct his own reality but in the end of every attempt to find a pure way of living, he finds himself in a more complicated trouble. As a symbol of isolation and his own existence he wears a red hunter hat. He judges everyone from the inside of his hat.