When Phoebe asks Holden what he would like to be, she first suggests traditional professions such as a scientist or a lawyer. Holden quickly rejects those. Because it is Phoebe, he feels comfortable revealing an inner truth. What he’d really like to be is “the catcher in the rye.” Holden misunderstands the line from the Robert Burns lyric that he heard the boy singing in Chapter 16. Holden thinks that the line is, “If a body catch a body comin’ through the rye.” Phoebe corrects him. The actual line, she says, is, “If a body meet a body coming through the rye.”
Holden has a vision of thousands of small children playing in a field of rye. A cliff borders the field. In their abandon, the innocent children symbolically run too close to the edge and may fall. Holden would be there to catch them. He would be the catcher in the rye.
Phoebe doesn’t respond for a long time. Then she says, with all practicality, “Daddy’s going to kill you.” Although she may be Holden’s best friend, Phoebe occasionally demonstrates that she is only 10 years old and unable to understand the depth of Holden’s desire.
Holden wants to call Mr. Antolini, his former teacher at Elkton Hills. Now an English instructor at New York University, Antolini and his wife might allow Holden to stay with them. Phoebe undercuts the intensity of the moment. Like a kid, she quickly has moved past the catcher in the rye. She casually reports that her friend Phyllis has been giving her belching lessons while Holden was at Pencey, and Phoebe demonstrates what she has learned.
