In 1984, why does Winston feel that he murdered his mother?

has only
hazy, dreamlike memories of his mother and sister. In reality, there's no evidence he murdered
her: she and his sister disappeared one day after he snatched a small piece of chocolate from
his starving sister's hand and ran away. When he came back, they were gone. Rationally, he
understands that his mother might even be alive, in a work camp, and that like him, his sister
might have been sent to a center for orphaned children.

Whiledoesn't tell us
precisely why Winston believes he murdered his mother, the narrative makes it psychologically
realistic that Winston would believe that. First, Winston remembers being constantly hungry and
continually grabbing food from his mother's plate, as well as "pilfering" food she
didn't guard constantly. So, in a literal sense, he was contributing to killing her through
accelerating her slow starvation. Second, he recognizes that she behaved in a giving and loving
way he could not reciprocate: she could sacrifice herself out of love for him and his sister. He
could only behave, as a child, selfishly. On an intuitive level, he realizes he had a brute
survival instinct that she was willing to give up for him. Third, he has highly symbolic dreams
in which he is somehow killing his mother and sister, who are at the bottom of a pit while he is
at the top. The dreams seem to be Winston's way of understanding that he, to some extent,
survived at their expense, at least when they were all together, through his willingness to grab
more than his fair share of food. Further, it would be realistic for a child whose mother has
disappeared to fantasize he was responsible. Finally, until he falls in love with , Winston
leads a dehumanized existence: he has a hard, if not impossible, time feeling emotions beyond
fear, guilt, hate and anger. Almost the only way he is able to experience anything emotionally
(though he is able to appreciate beauty) is to feel something negative. So, since he does have
feelings for his mother, they would probably manifest in a negative way, such as in the sense he
killed her. After all, the only way he is initially able to feel emotion towards Julia is
through a desire to hurt and kill her, a violent fantasy. After he is rehumanized through loving
Julia, Winston is able to recognize that he didn't murder his mother.