11. Thomas Anderson Lives In Room 101 - A Reference To George Orwell's 1884
Well before Thomas Anderson becomes aware of his true purpose - before, even, he has an inkling of the nature of the Matrix which surrounds him - he is a slave and prisoner to the system. His reality is what the Matrix tells him it is, and his apartment a cell which he inhabits without ever realising he's a prisoner. An immediate clue for the attentive viewer as to his condition comes in a shot where he opens his door to customers looking to score - the room number, 101, is well known to anyone familiar with George Orwell's seminal political satire 1984 as the room in which nightmares and fears are realised. The Wachowskis clearly owed a debt to the Orwellian dystopia in their vision of mankind enslaved, and this set dressing touch is there way of acknowledging this debt.
