Nineteen Eighty-Four/Recap/Part 1, Chapter 1

""It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.""

The story begins in a city devoid of color, except for the bright and gigantic posters of a Stalin-esque face, designed in such a way that the eyes look at you from any viewing angle, bearing the caption BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU.

Winston Smith arrives at his workplace, and proceeds to climb seven flights of stairs to his desk (There is an elevator, but it's almost certainly out of order, since the city is conserving power for something called "Hate Week"). He notes the placement of one Big Brother poster across the stairwell, its gaze seeming to follow him as he ascends. Sitting down at his station, he gazes out the window to see a police helicopter flying around, snooping in people's windows. This, to him, is an ordinary sight.

He turns down the Telescreen installed at his station as far as it will go (it lacks an 'off' setting), knocks back a shot of gin so cheap as to be like nitric acid, lights a cigarette (after one failed attempt in which the tobacco falls out of the paper), and proceeds to a far corner of the room, out of surveillance range of the Telescreen. Everyone else is out to lunch, and in taking a break as early as he did, Winston has given up on his own chance to eat. But he's decided that it's worth giving up a meal, for the chance to put his thoughts to paper.


 * Crapsack World: While by no means the only chapter to establish the setting as such, the sheer speed at which the story sets the tone of the world is worth noting.