Caulfields relationship with younger children is central to and explains
the title. As a teenager, Holden is often uncomfortable and is highly conscious of his position
between childhood and adulthood. He seems to have been delayed in maturing by the trauma he has
suffered because of his younger brothers death. Holden wants to protect his younger sister, ,
both because he deeply loves her and because he feels he failed their brother, . More generally,
Holden wishes he could protect all children.
When he leaves school and comes
home to New York, in a conversation with Phoebe, the brother struggles to explain these
protective urges to her. Holden has recurring vision of himself as a savior, which could be
called a messiah complex. This vision includes standing on the edge of a precipice, where the
children are in danger of falling off. Holden incorrectly recalls the works to an old Scottish
song, Comin through the Rye, which is about an encounter between two people or bodies.
Instead of meet, he has substituted catch, rendering the lyric, if a body catch a body.
Holden dearly wishes to be the person who can catch the other bodies, who are the children about
to go over the cliff: he wishes he could be the catcher in the rye.
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