Symbolism.
The title of the book is a symbol in its self. The song by Rober Burns, "Comin' Thro' the Rye" actually is about seeing if it is wrong for two people to have a romantic encounter in a field of rye, away from the public eye. In Chapter 16, when Holden sees the little boy walking in the street and singing that song, Holden mistakes the line " if a body -meet- a body, coming through the rye" for 'if a body -catch- a body coming through the rye." Really, the two words -catch- and -meet- have a totally opposite meaning. When Phoebe asks Holden in Chapter 22 What he wants to do, he s…
