the beginning

Nineteen Eighty-Four starts on a bright cold day in April, this introduction would have automatically brought to the minds of Orwell's readers the poem the waist land by T. S Elliot, the first line of which says, April is the cruelest month. Automatically Orwell's readers would have perceived some for-shadowing. Also in the first sentence it says "the clocks were striking thirteen." As thirteen is in western society perceived as unlucky here is even more evidence that something bad is coming.