“Comin Thro’ the Rye” by Robert Burns is about a girl named Jenny walking through the grain fields, or the rye. Her wet, poor body symbolizes her emotions and her sadness. Jenny is in an emotional puddle and seems to be in a state of depression. She is seldom dry because she is seldom out of the puddle. In addition, the rye represents the poor period during the 1700s. It seems as if she is stuck in the rye and can’t get out of her morbid emotional state. In the poem, she “drags at her petticoat,” and I think that means that she kept herself together. The petticoat represents a skirt that keeps the structure of her dress and that shows how it held her together. This poem is about a girl who is sexually active and has been judged by others around her society. The repetition of “comin thro’ the rye” places the readers where the woman is and emphasizes the importance of the location. The woman walking through the grainfield is not a farmer, since she is wearing a petticoat. She seems to be crying and the feeling of this poem is melancholy. I think Jenny is questioning the world and she thinks that no one is listening to her problems because the poem says “need the warld ken?” which means if the world listens to her. In stanza three, I think she meets somebody in the fields. The poet emphasies the girls sexual desire by including the detail of “kissing the body.” She yearns for something or somebody and wants to meet him or her. Burns emphasizes the use of ‘rye’ and ‘dry’ to emphasize the mood of the poem, which is melancholy. The rhythm of the poem gives it liveliness and makes it more interesting for the readers.
