Winston opens the diary

Winston dips an old-fashioned pen into the ink and writes 'April 4th, 1984' in small clumsy letters. He feels helpless and wonders for whom he is writing this diary, for the future or for the unborn. The word doublethink comes into his mind, and he realizes the magnitude of what he is doing. He begins writing in panic, describing a war film he saw the night before, a film of refugees bombed in the Mediterranean, and the crowd's laughter at a fat man being shot by a helicopter. He also recalls a woman in the lifeboat trying to shelter a small boy from bullets, and the audience's reaction. This memory leads him to remember the Two Minutes Hate that happened that morning, which is the real reason he decided to come home and begin the diary today.