There are many examples of Winston's curiosity and longing for the past throughout the novel. Since Oceania controls the present by altering the past, Winston's obsession with the past is understandable.
Throughout the text, Winston often has flashbacks to his childhood, specifically to memories his mother and younger sister. The frequency of these flashbacks, in tandem with the thoughts and questions surrounding these memories, reflects Winston's curiosity and nostalgia.
Winston's inquisitive nature is also observable in his writing and thoughts. He often questions himself about society as a way to discover gaps between the Party's lies and reality. His inner dialogue often contradicts Big Brother's messages, indicating his desire for change (which, again, can be tied to yearning for the past).
Another example is when Winston attempts to ask the old man at the bar questions about the man's childhood. Though the interaction is frustrating, Winston's attempts to discover the truth reflect his desire to learn more about the past.
Lastly, Winston's hatred toward Big Brother, and society in general, can be interpreted as contempt for the present and desire for change. Since Winston only knows his experience, the parts that he can remember, it can be inferred that he wants things to go back to the way they used to be.
Several details suggest that Winston in 1984 is curious about and yearns for the past. Controlling the narrative of the past is one of the biggest ways that the Party maintains control in Oceania. Therefore, in addition to a personal curiosity, every detail that Winston can gather about the past and the way that it truly was is an act of defiance against the Party.
One of these instances happens in the first chapter. Winston purchased a diary at a pawn shop, and as he opens it, he thinks:
The thing that he was about to do was to open a diary. This was not illegal (nothing was illegal, since there were no longer any laws), but if detected it was reasonably certain that it would be punished by death, or at least by twenty-five years in a forced-labour camp. Winston fitted a nib into the penholder and sucked it to get the grease off. The pen was an archaic instrument, seldom used even for signatures, and he had procured one, furtively and with some difficulty, simply because of a feeling that the beautiful creamy paper deserved to be written on with a real nib instead of being scratched with an ink-pencil (Orwell chapter 1).
Winston is so enamored by and so curious about the past that he has purchased, opened, and written in this diary, even though he knows that this is a crime punishable by death. Winston longs to be able to record what is happening so that the past will not be forgotten and so that what he has written will be a record that he (falsely) believes that the Party cannot change. He is fascinated by the past and its relics, and he relishes the feel of the paper and pen that are not currently in use in Oceania.
This drive to know about the past causes Winston to go seek information and more relics from the past. He goes to a pub in the prole district and questions an old man at length by saying the following:
"You are very much older than I am," said Winston. "You must have been a grown man before I was born. You can remember what it was like in the old days, before the Revolution. People of my age don't really know anything about those times. We can only read about them in books, and what it says in the books may not be true. I should like your opinion on that" (Orwell chapter 8).
The old man cannot tell Winston anything, and Winston is disheartened that he cannot confirm his ideas that the past was indeed better. Winston then returns to the same pawn shop where he bought the diary. This is a place he will visit over and over again until he is captured, and it is a place that holds many artifacts from the past that Winston admires.
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks01/0100021.txt
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