AI ToolsNew
Tools to make learning and teaching easier
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in One Day, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Relationships and Time
Social Class
Coming of Age and the Search for Meaning
Addiction and Recovery
Summary
Analysis
Thursday, July 15, 1999. Emma feels that she is in the “Third Wave” of receiving wedding invitations from people she knows in their early to mid-thirties. One of them is from Tilly. Emma has a plus-one invite but goes alone. Part of her dreads it, but she is curious to see people like Stephanie, Callum, and Dexter again. Dexter is bringing his girlfriend Sylvie.
The prevalence of weddings in Emma’s life signals that she is aging and entering a new phase of her life, when people are becoming more committed in their romantic relationships. Like St. Swithin’s Day for Dexter and Emma, weddings are important events that take on annual significance.
Themes
Dexter’s lies to Sylvie on the way over to the wedding suggests that, in spite of how their relationship has lasted over a year, it may be troubled due to their lack of honesty with each other.
Themes
Emma arrives late and gets confused by the valet parking. The ceremony is long and feels more like a variety show of different performances to Emma. She sees Dexter who looks healthier and more handsome than he did before meeting Sylvie. They’ve seen each other at three prior weddings, acting happy to see each other but never talking much. This time, however, they get to talking, and Dexter teases Emma, saying her new haircut looks like a “Rachel.” They agree that Tilly’s Marie Antoinette theme for the wedding is ridiculous.
Some of the novel’s references to popular culture are humorous ways to establish the setting. In 1999, the haircut the “Rachel” would have been popular due to the TV show Friends. While Dexter has long been involved with TV, the fact that even Emma is taking hairstyle inspiration from a television show—and particularly an American one—is a sign of how globalized and influential media has become over the time when the story takes place.
Themes
Upgrade to unlock the analysis and theme tracking for all of One DayOne Day!
Get LitCharts A+
Callum, who made his business fortune on sandwiches, talks to Dexter and others by the food about how sandwiches are the future. He talks about how people in Britain suddenly want fresher food. He says he hasn’t seen Dexter on TV lately and that he should join his sandwich business. Dexter deflects him, saying he’s a presenter on an extreme sports show that only airs on cable and satellite. At last, he agrees to talk to Callum about it over lunch someday.
Callum’s rant about fresh food in Britain is another sign of changing times and how ideas about what constitutes a healthy diet has evolved over the years. Callum’s ability to see a trend in society and monetize it establishes him as shrewd (or perhaps conniving, as later chapters reveal). This contrasts with Dexter’s own aimless way of going along with the flow.
Themes
Get the entire One Day LitChart as a printable PDF.
The people around Dexter and Emma are often better at seeing their potential as a couple than Dexter and Emma themselves. Even Callum, who seems self-involved and likes to bluster on about his own business successes, can see that there was a connection between Dexter and Emma.
Themes
Emma sees Callum and Dexter talking boisterously. She’s stuck in a conversation with Miffy Buchanan, whom she used to hate. Emma tells Miffy that she’s currently self-employed but has received an advance to work on her novel. Miffy says Emma has lost her Northern accent. Emma is surprised to hear this and claims she didn’t do it on purpose.
Miffy notices Emma’s change in accent because she has gone long periods of time without seeing Emma, whereas for Emma, any change would be gradual. Emma’s loss of her Northern accent (which is a stereotypical marker of a working-class background) seems to coincide with how going to university and working her way up to a better career have slowly changed her class identity.
Themes
On the way to the tables for dinner, Dexter and Emma meet up. They’re at very different tables but make plans to talk afterwards. Although Emma feels that she has been exiled at some distant table for some past offense against Tilly, Dexter thinks she’s having a lively conversation. After dinner, Dexter comes over to Emma with a bottle of champagne. They are tired of the crowd and go out walking in a hedge maze on the grounds.
This passage humorously shows a disconnect in how Dexter and Emma think: while Emma believes that Tilly has punished her with her seating placement, Dexter looks from afar and thinks Emma is having a great time. This disconnect helps show how each thinks that the other must be doing better in their life at the moment.
Themes
As Emma and Dexter talk and walk through the maze, he’s surprised to learn that she knows about his one-night-stand with Tilly. She asks about Sylvie, whom Dexter says has been caught by Callum and forced to listen to his business ideas. Dexter asks what Emma’s book is about and if it’s about him. She says it's actually inspired by a production of Oliver! she did years ago.
Dexter continues to overestimate his ability to maintain lies and secrets, as he finds out that his one-night stand with Tilly was always an open secret. Emma’s reveal that her book was inspired by that old production of Oliver! shows how she is learning to take her past experiences, even disappointments like her teaching career, and learn and grow from them.
Themes
Dexter offers Emma a cigarette, but she says she quit years ago. Dexter has officially “quit” himself but figures Sylvie will never catch him out here. His says his life is more sedated now that he’s settled down with Sylvie and that he thinks he got his wild years of sex and drugs out of his system. Emma says Sylvie is lovely but compares her to Leni Riefenstahl, a reference Dexter doesn’t fully understand.
Dexter’s offer of a cigarette to Emma shows how he is still deep in his addictions, while her initial refusal shows how she is trying to change the trajectory of her life—which might include her “addiction” to Dexter. Leni Riefenstahl was a Nazi filmmaker, and so this passage calls back to earlier when Emma called Dexter’s father a “fascist,” showing that despite everything that’s changed, Emma hasn’t lost her sarcastic disdain for upper-class manners.
Themes
Emma says she briefly dated a dental hygienist, but it went nowhere. She supposes that when she turns 40, she could always accept Dexter’s marriage offer. Dexter forgets he said this and finds his past self somewhat patronizing. He says he has to withdraw the offer because he and Sylvie are engaged. Emma says she’s very happy and that the engagement is “rad,” as Dexter would say on his extreme sports show. He hands her a wedding invitation that costs eight pounds and is lavender-scented.
Emma’s brief time dating a dental hygienist suggests that she has moved on from affairs or from dating a failing stand-up comic, but that she still struggles to find passion in her relationships. Meanwhile, Dexter’s fancy, expensive wedding invitation shows that he has gotten involved in a relationship that is much more serious than his past flings, but which is perhaps too focused on status signifiers rather than genuine passion.
Themes
Emma reads the invitation and realizes the wedding is only seven weeks away. Dexter admits that they had to arrange it quickly because Sylvie is pregnant. Emma is shocked and says maybe she’ll take Dexter’s cigarette after all. He shows Emma the ultrasound scan. Emma doesn’t really care about ultrasounds, but she says it’s beautiful because she knows she’s supposed to. Emma hugs Dexter and says jokingly that he’s destroyed any chance she has of ever being happy, but she’s excited for him anyway. Just then, she feels his cell phone ringing against her. It’s Sylvie calling.
The fancy state of Dexter’s wedding invitation contrasts with the haphazard and accidental circumstances that led to him and Sylvie planning such a quick wedding. Emma’s decision to take Dexter’s cigarette after all is a sign of how she still struggles to quit her addictions. It also represents how stressful the news of Dexter’s impending marriage and fatherhood are to her because it makes her realize she may be losing him for good this time.
Themes
On the cell phone, Sylvie gently scolds Dexter for leaving her alone so long. He lies and says he’s lost with a whole group of people in the maze. He hangs up and tells Emma they should find the exit. On the way out, he asks her for help writing his speech since she’s such a good writer. Emma says he needs to write it himself and it will carry more weight even if it’s less polished.
The maze that Emma and Dexter walk through ends up being a metaphor for the many twists of their relationship and how each of them has moments when they get lost in life. Dexter’s request for Emma to help write his wedding speech represents how Emma helps Dexter get in touch with his feelings.
Themes
As they continue to head back, Emma admits to Dexter that she missed him a lot while they weren’t talking. He says the same. They both apologize for acting selfishly. Emma eventually starts to cry and admits that she thought of Dexter not just often but every day. She admits that she’s afraid the wedding and the baby will make her lose Dexter again, even though she’s happy for him. Dexter promises he won’t let anything come between them. “Friends again?” asks Dexter. Emma agrees.
After years of living separate lives, in this moment, Dexter and Emma at last start to become more honest with each other about how important they are to each other. When Emma admits that she thinks of Dexter and is afraid of losing him, it is one of the first times that she communicates her feelings to him directly rather than from a sarcastic distance. And so, Tilly’s wedding ends up also being a milestone in the relationship of Dexter and Emma, even if at this point, all they agree to be is friends.
Themes
