The specter of a fiery crash flashed through Winston’s mind with no sound, only the images of flames and the spinning down of huge engines. But it was just an airplane coming in low, he thought. Or a dream.”
-- Narrator (chapter 1)

Importance: The images that flash silently through Winston’s mind foreshadow catastrophe but they are otherwise misleading: in this chapter, Winston will come across a botched landing rather than a crash scene, and the drama at the end of the novel is similarly muted in character. Whereas on this occasion Winston confuses reality with dreams, the vision of fiery wreckage does reappear later on, in a dream that he mistakes for reality (illustrating the novel’s focus on inner turmoil, as much as external crises). The use of italics to emphasize profound or unsettling thoughts – or to indicate a character’s attempt to convince themselves of something – recurs throughout the novel...