Opening Scene: 

On the “bright cold day in April” Winston Smith lives in a place ironically named “Victory Mansions” despite the “gritty dust” and the smell “of boiled cabbage and old rag mats” (Orwell 1). This scene provides insight and foreshadowing on the tale of how this seemingly mundane description actually depicts a twisted and controlled society’s life.

Motif: 

The motif of sight is presented through various references to “faces with very small eyes” (Orwell 60), “the black-mustachio’d face gazed down from every commanding corner”(Orwell 2), and constant surveillance via the telescreens. This motif suggests that vision is perceptive and it adds to the novel by creating a perception of how varying vision contributes to the distortion of reality.