In one of the best-known openings in American fiction, Salinger sets the tone for Holden's personality and narrative style. The first paragraph of the novel is often compared to the opening lines of Mark Twain's novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884). From the beginning, we, the readers, realize that Holden is not a traditional narrator. He eschews details about his birth, his parents, and "all that David Copperfield kind of crap" (referring to Charles Dickens' novel by the same name). Holden speaks in the vernacular of a teenager of his day (the late 1940s). The literary point of view is first-person singular, unique to Holden but easily accessible to the rebels, romantics, innocents, and dreamers of any generation.
After stating that he will just tell us about the "madman stuff" that happened the previous December, Holden typically digresses to describe his brother, D.B., who was a "terrific" short story writer until he sold out and went to Hollywood. The theme of Holden's favorite D.B. story, "The Secret Goldfish" (about a child who buys a goldfish and does not allow anyone to look at it, because he has paid for it with his own money) foreshadows Holden's consistent passion for the innocence and authenticity of childhood.
The setting for the early chapters in the flashback is Pencey Prep, a "terrible" school whose atmosphere seems as cold as the December air on Thomsen Hill. Holden has no love for prep schools. Although he oddly respects the academic standards of Pencey, he sees it as phony, if not evil. Magazine ads for the school, featuring horsemanship, are misleading because, Holden claims, he has never seen a horse anywhere near Pencey. The school's motto, concerned with molding boys into "splendid" young men, is "for the birds," according to Holden. After all, one of the students has stolen his winter coat and fur-lined gloves.
