"Comin' Thro' the Rye"

"Comin' Thro' the Rye" is a poem written by Robert Burns that is more widely known as a traditional children's song. Holden hears this song sung while walking down the street and also tells his sister that when he hears the tune he imagines all the children are running in the rye near a cliff, and wishes that he could have the duty of catching them if they fell off. The tune serves as the ultimate symbol for Holden's firm desire to safeguard the innocence of children and is the part of the novel from which its title is derived.

"'You know that song 'If a body catch a body comin' through the rye'? I'd like — '

'It's 'If a body meet a body coming through the rye'!' old Phoebe said. 'It's a poem. By Robert Burns.'

'I know it's a poem by Robert Burns.'

She was right, though. It is 'If a body meet a body coming through the rye.' I didn't know it then, though.

'I thought it was 'If a body catch a body,'' I said. 'Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around — nobody big, I mean — except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff — I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I'd do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be. I know it's crazy.'"

Carousel

The Carousel in Central Park is a location Holden visits in the last chapter in the novel with his sister. It is yet another symbol for Holden's childhood, but his thoughts while watching his sister ride it transform it into something more. As he watches Phoebe dangerously reach out and try to grab a gold ring, he finally accepts that you can't protect children and their innocence from the "Adult" world- it's simply a natural part of life. After coming to this realization, Holden feels so happy that he was "damn near bawling."

“Then the carousel started, and I watched her go round and round...All the kids tried to grab for the gold ring, and so was old Phoebe, and I was sort of afraid she'd fall off the goddam horse, but I didn't say or do anything. The thing with kids is, if they want to grab for the gold ring, you have to let them do it, and not say anything. If they fall off, they fall off, but it is bad to say anything to them.” 

_The Return of the Native_

The Return of the Native is a novel by Thomas Hardy mentioned a few times in The Catcher in the Rye as a literary work that Holden greatly enjoyed reading. It was extremely controversial when it was released for containing multiple scandalous relationships, which is why it represents Holden's fascination with (and slight fear of) sex and other adult actions. Holden can also relate to a woman in the novel, Eustacia Vye; a scorned misfit who seeks adventure. The woman that Holden relates to drowns in the end of the novel, which might be a subtle tie to his preoccupation with thoughts of death.

"Then I started wondering like a bastard what the one sitting next to me, that taught English, thought about, being a nun and all, when she read certain books for English. Books not necessarily with a lot of sexy stuff in them, but books with lovers and all in them. Take old Eustacia Vye, in The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy. She wasn't too sexy or anything, but even so you can't help wondiering what a nun thinks about when she reads about old Eustacia" 

"F--- You" Signs

One symbol that is seen throughout the last few chapters of the novel is "Fuck You" penned or graffiti'd  onto places relevant to Holden's childhood. When he sees the words written on the wall at Phoebe's (as well has his past) elementary school and one of the "sacred" tombs of the museum, Holden goes of on rage-fueled tangents. The signs symbolize the corruption of Holden's childhood and innocence, and serve as yet another immoral observation that creates internal conflict for him in the novel.

"That's the whole trouble. You can't ever find a place that's nice and peaceful, because there isn't any. You may think there is, but once you get there, when you're not looking, somebody'll sneak up and write 'Fuck you' right under your nose. Try it sometime. I think, even, if I ever die, and they stick me in a cemetery, and I have a tombstone and all, it'll say "Holden Caulfield" on it, and then what year I was born and what year I died, and then right under that it'll say 'Fuck you.' I'm positive, in fact."

"If you had a million years to do it in, you couldn't rub out even half the 'Fuck you' signs in the world. It's impossible."

Museum of Natural History

The Museum of Natural History is a location that Holden visits during his solo trek through New York City. He comments on how he loves that the exhibits never change and are "frozen" in time. His joy of the exhibits is juxtaposed with his sadness that every time he returns to the museum, he has changed himself. The museum allows Holden to reiterate his consuming fear of change and serves as a symbol for his ideal world where everything stays the same and innocence is retained.

"The best thing, though, in that museum was that everything always stayed right where it was. Nobody'd move"

"Then a funny thing happened. When I got to the museum, all of a sudden I wouldn't have gone inside for a million bucks. It just didn't appeal to me--and here I'd walked through the whole goddam park and looked forward to it and all"

Ducks in Central Park

Holden is very curious as to where the ducks in central park go for the winter. He asks two different cab drivers for an explanation, but they either disregard him or scoff for his lack of knowledge on migration. The mystery of the duck's migratory pattern brings out a youthful side of Holden and they symbolize perseverance in an environment that may not be suited for them. They also represent that change can be cyclic, and not definite as the death of his brother was.

"I live in New York, and I was thinking about the lagoon in Central Park, down near Central Park South. I was wondering if it would be frozen over when I got home, and if it was, where did the ducks go? I was wondering where the ducks went when the lagoon got all icy and frozen over. I wondered if some guy came in a truck and took them away to a zoo or something. Or if they just flew away."

Allie's Baseball Glove

Holden's deceased younger brother, Allie, had a baseball glove with poems written all over it so that he would have something to read while he was in the outfield. The glove has great sentimental value for Holden and is a symbol of his emotions that he keeps locked away (much like the glove is hidden away). It is a reminder to him of the intelligent, creative, and friendly person his brother was, and his description of the glove is the first time the reader sees his emotional side. When Holden's essay on the glove for his roommate Stradlater is mocked, it becomes the catalyst for his leaving school and going to the city on his own. Memories of Holden's brother are some of the happiest he can remember and inspire a sense of nostalgia and innocence within him.

“I was only thirteen, and they were going to have me psychoanalyzed and all, because I broke all the windows in the garage. I don't blame them. I really don't. I slept in the garage the night he died, and I broke all the goddam windows with my fist, just for the hell of it. I even tried to break all the windows on the station wagon we had that summer, but my hand was already broken and everything by that time, and I couldn't do it. It was a very stupid thing to do, I'll admit, but I hardly didn't even know I was doing it, and you didn't know Allie. My hand still hurts me once in a while when it rains and all, and I can't make a real fist any more – not a tight one, I mean – but outside of that I don't care much. I mean I'm not going to be a goddam surgeon or a violinist or anything anyway."

"So what I did, I wrote about my brother Allie's baseball mitt. It was a very descriptive subject. It really was. My brother Allie had this left-handed fielder's mitt. He was left-handed. The thing that was descriptive about it, though, was that he had poems written all over the fingers and the pocket and everywhere. In green ink. He wrote them on it so that he'd have something to read when he was in the field and nobody was up at bat. He's dead now. He got leukemia and died when we were up in Maine, on July 18, 1946. You'd have liked him. He was two years younger than I was, but he was about fifty times as intelligent. He was terrifically intelligent. His teachers were always writing letters to my mother, telling her what a pleasure it was having a boy like Allie in their class. And they weren't just shooting the crap. They really meant it. But it wasn't just that he was the most intelligent member in the family. He was also the nicest, in lots of ways. He never got mad at anybody. […] God, he was a nice kid, though. He used to laugh so hard at something he thought of at the dinner table that he just about fell off his chair."