The novel opens with Holden Caulfield, having just been expelled from Pencey Prep, deciding to leave early and spend a few days alone in New York City before his parents learn of his expulsion, establishing the wandering, first-person narrative structure that defines the rest of the book.

Key elements established in the opening:

• Holden's distinctive voice — cynical, digressive, emotionally guarded but revealing — immediately establishes the novel's intimate, unreliable-narrator perspective on his own experience
• His repeated use of the word "phony" to describe nearly everyone he encounters establishes his central preoccupation: a deep distrust of adult hypocrisy and social performance
• Holden's decision to delay going home, rather than face his parents immediately, sets up the aimless wandering structure through which the novel explores his inner state

This opening establishes both Holden's sharp, judgmental voice and the loneliness underneath it that becomes clearer as the novel progresses.