Paranoia seems to be a recurring theme EVERYWHERE. First Macbeth, then all those totalitarian rulers around the time of World War II (i.e. Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini), and now Winston from 1984.
Everywhere he goes he feels like he's being followed by Big Brother's eyes (which isn't exactly a pretense--for he is being watched constantly). Lack of privacy is one cost, but another is one's sanity and sense of security: seems like Winston's going crazy over who can see him, say, going into an old antique store in a "prole" neighborhood--a place where the people of the middle class--the proles--live. Him going into such an area is somewhat taboo, but he feels the inclined to go anyway based on how nostalgic he feels in its atmosphere--he senses the presence of his unknown past in these forbidden alleys. Only...he's EXTREMELY paranoid about this whole breaking-the-law thing, so as soon as he sees "the girl with the dark hair" from work (who later reveals herself to be an admirer of his) he immediately presumes she is spying on him.
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