The final chapter in Part 1 has Winston making a serious attempt to find a connection with the past. Winston knows that his actions mean certain torture and death, yet he continues to search, hoping that he is not alone, that someone else feels as he does. This is the first time in the novel that Winston actively reaches out to the past, to his curiosity and obsession with memory and history, and it is this action that seals his fate.
Mr. Charrington's antique shop, representing the past as it does, is a significant find. At the antique shop, Winston finds a paperweight and a fragment of a child's nursery rhyme, whose purposes are mysterious to him. These items become symbolic motifs in the novel. The paperweight, at this point in the novel, symbolizes the mystery and charm of the past, though later it will come to represent the relationship between Winston and Julia. The coral in the center of the paperweight represents rarity, and the fact that it is embedded in the glass and cannot be touched represent the problem in Winston's life. He wants to know the past, but too many obstacles surround it, preventing him access. The fragment of the nursery rhyme also becomes important later in the novel, functioning both as a thread tying together the main characters, as well as a representation of a kind of nostalgia that Winston is perpetually searching for.
