The novel
begins withreturning to his home, a small, drab flat within Victory
Mansions, in London.uses the scene to describe the dystopic world that serves as the setting for
the novel. He describes the nearly ubiquitous presence of Big Brother, who stares at Winston
from the posters and murals lining the streets of London as well as the stairways and halls of
Victory Mansions. He notes the monolithic structures that house the Ministries of Truth, Love
and Plenty, noting the bitter ironies that lay behind each of these names. He describes the
Party slogan that we read throughout the book, one which explains the Party's hold on the people
of Oceania:
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS
SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
He makes it clear
that London is hardly the utopia that the Party would have its members believe. It is described
as a hellish, bombed-out nightmare. All of the images Orwell evokes are unpleasant: from
"gritty dust" that blows into Victory Mansions when he opens the glass door to the
smell of "boiled cabbage and old rag mats" that greets him when he walks down his hall
to the "sickly, oily smell" of the Victory Gin that he quaffs when he gets home. We
learn much about Orwell's vision of Oceania in this first chapter.
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