The Significance of the Hat in Miller’s Crossing

While there are many possible symbolic meanings of the hat in Miller’s Crossing, I saw the hat as an homage to the Glass Key. Through Tom’s dream about the hat the Coen brother’s are showing Tom’s attitude’s similarity to the attitude of Ned in the Glass Key. Throughout the beginning of the movie Tom is looking to recover his hat, and ends up getting it from Verna, so in some ways she can be seen as the one possible meaning of the hat. Using Verna as the hat we can correlate Tom’s eventual killing of Bernie as his letting the hat go. Until the moment he actually kills Bernie it is still possible for Tom to be with Verna. In the end Tom gives up everything and this defeatist attitude is exemplified in his refusal to go after the hat in his dream. He thinks it is foolish for a man to chase after a hat but throughout the movie the talk about the “high hat”, and how the hat can be seen as a status symbol. In a way Tom is saying that it is foolish for a man to try to better himself, or even retain what he has earned.