The Hat Symbol Analysis

Both Julian’s Mother and Carver’s Mother wear identical hats that are eccentric and expensive, which represents the changing culture of the newly-integrated South. The identical hats point to several new convergences between races: both a white and black woman shop at the same store, can afford the same extravagant accessories, and have the same idiosyncratic taste. The hat’s color, purple, is traditionally symbolic of royalty, relating the hat even more specifically to class and social status. In this sense, the hat suggests that both of the characters are trying to signal higher standing in the Southern social hierarchy. In spite of all these parallels between Julian’s Mother and Carver’s Mother, Julian’s Mother’s inability to recognize these similarities represents whites’ unwillingness to recognize black people as equal. This misrecognition is ironically foreshadowed when Julian’s Mother buys the hat, as the store clerk tells her “with that hat, you won’t meet yourself coming and going.”