The dream stylization of The Woman in the Window is in part achieved by its use of fated or fateful coincidences. In our dreams and nightmares, a single face may appear and reappear in different guises…. Lang effects his Gothicism … subtly, utilizing a straw hat. The boater was a common enough sight in the Forties, but, save for the three important characters who wear them, The Woman in the Window offers a sea of fedoras. (p. 14)

The motif of the straw hat telescopes the dreamer's anxiety, his justifiable paranoia. From [Professor Wanley's] point of view, the straw hat suggests that he is being pursued by the serial selves of a single, protean nemesis. The "coincidence" of the hat, no coincidence at all, helps to define the coordinates of the labyrinth from which [Wanley] seems unable to escape. Darkened rooms, corridors, car interiors, and the menacing walls of a...