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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
Saturday 15 July 1989. From Wolverhampton, Emma writes to Dexter in Rome about how she has been working at the Sledgehammer Theatre Co-operative for the past four months. She’s currently in a children’s play about how slavery is bad. One of her co-workers, Sid, used to be on a police procedural TV show and seems annoyed about having to go back to theater, while her other co-worker Candy seems to expect her big break to come any day. Another actor, Kwame, is gets so into his role that he cries a lot in real life. Emma realizes that one of the problems of a democratic theater collective is that people like Sid and Candy (whose ideas Emma dislikes) get a vote too.
The name Sledgehammer Theatre Co-operative suggests that like a sledgehammer, the cooperative’s plays aren’t subtle in their smashing of problematic systemic norms. For Emma, the theatre company seems at first to be a way to live her ideals and help make art that has a social message. But as she spends more time with her co-workers, she learns that many of them have selfish motivations for joining the company and do not seem to care about the same ideals she does. Emma’s co-workers, who are less interested in the greater good, test her desire for harmony and democratic decision-making.
Themes
After finishing her letter to Dexter, Emma puts it aside, as Gary Nutkin, the play director and co-founder of Sledgehammer, enters the communal dressing room for a pre-show pep talk. Gary warns them, particularly Sid, not to take the bait if the audience reacts to them. As the actors around her warm up, Emma thinks of all her abandoned pursuits from the previous year, like a failed band and a failed novel. She lived with her parents for a while, who couldn’t understand why someone with such a good degree could struggle to find work.
While Emma seems to look down on her coworkers’ lack of success in achieving their life goals, just as she once judged Dexter, she herself struggles to find purpose as she moves between different creative projects. Her prestigious degree but inability to find meaningful work reflects the economic conditions in England during this time period. It also reflects how Emma’s sense of purpose in life might not be as clear as she originally thought it was.
Themes
One of the few bright spots of Emma’s previous year was when she went to visit Dexter in his family’s mansion. She did slightly ruin things, however, by arguing with Dexter’s father about the Sandinistas in Nicaragua and calling him a “fascist.” Still, it was clear Dexter didn’t mind that when they met up again later in London at the birthday party of Callum, a mutual friend. When Dexter went on his long period of travel, mostly to places known as “party towns,” he and Emma became pen pals. Eventually, Emma got a phone call about a job at Sledgehammer from Gary Nutkin, who had once directed her in a play (and had awkward sex with her after the cast party). Emma had no ambition of being an actress but thought the job was better than nothing and might offer some small chance to make a difference.
The Sandinistas in Nicaragua were a left-wing group that someone with Emma’s politics would have supported and someone with Dexter’s father’s politics would oppose. Despite Emma’s political convictions, she still shows some passive qualities at this point in her life, allowing herself to be talked into a theatre job even when she has no ambition to be an actress. This suggests that Dexter and Emma may not be as different as they sometimes appear, with Dexter’s journey between party towns being his own form of aimless wandering and uncertainty about his future.
Themes
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Meanwhile, on that same July 15, 1989, in Rome, Dexter is trying to teach English pronunciation to Tove Angstrom, who is lying with him on cushions in his room. He’s been working as a teacher at the Percy Shelley International School of English. Tove, a Danish woman, is one of his students. Though this made him briefly consider some ethical questions, ultimately it didn’t stop him from having sex with her. Still, Dexter imagines Emma would judge him for his choice. He tells Tove she has to go because he’s meeting up with his parents soon.
Emma’s disappointing theater job contrasts in many ways with the more glamorous and easygoing life that Dexter seems to lead in Rome. Still, while Dexter’s life may seem carefree, he senses that he may be doing something unethical by having sex with one of his students (though, critically, he does have sex with her anyway). The fact that Dexter wonders what Emma would think even when she’s so far away shows the influence that each already has on the other’s life.
Themes
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While Dexter seeks out a superficial relationship with a student, Emma is more open about her feelings, telling Dexter directly how much she misses him. Still, this passage shows how Emma’s openness takes effort and how she experiences doubt about her decisions.
Themes
In Rome, Dexter finds his mother, Alison Mayhew, sitting and reading at a café table. Dexter likes both his parents and feels lucky. His father, Stephen Mayhew, is 15 years older than Dexter’s mother, whom he adores. Dexter’s mother studied fashion at one point but now runs an antique shop. She teases him that he’s late and must have been up to mischief. Dexter doesn’t mention Tove and just says he was working on lessons. Dexter asks about his father and learns that he had to lie down back at the hotel room.
Dexter’s relationship with his parents seems at first to be closer than Emma’s relationship to her family, who often don’t understand her, although later chapters will explore the challenges that even a well-to-do family can face. This passage hints at some of the secrets the Mayhew family keeps, showing how Dexter lies to his mother about the things that he does.
Themes
Dexter asks his mother for a match for his cigarette, and she wonders to him whether she went too far in trying to be a lenient parent. She is drunk and asks Dexter about his love life, saying that she has to live vicariously through him now that his sister is married. She knows that Dexter has been writing long letters to someone back home and asks if it’s the same girl who shouted at Dexter’s father about Sandinistas. She says she and Dexter’s father both liked Emma, even if Emma did call Dexter’s father a fascist.
By giving Dexter a match to light his cigarette, Dexter’s mother shows how she and Dexter’s father enable some of Dexter’s unhealthy qualities, like his addiction to cigarettes. Although Dexter’s mother seems in this chapter to be speaking her mind more freely because she’s drunk, the end of the chapter hints that she knows she is sick and wants to see Dexter taken care of before anything happens to her.
Themes
Dexter’s mother says she’s sure Emma likes Dexter. Dexter says that’s his curse—everyone likes him. His mother finishes her wine, then the two of them go walking north. She asks how long Dexter is staying in Rome and what he’ll do next, saying she’ll help him with the deposit on a flat. She asks if Dexter still has any interest in journalism, which he mentioned to her once in passing, though she hoped he’d eventually be able to think of something better later. He did a photography project back when he was 16 and thinks he’d like working as a photographer if he had the chance.
The help that Dexter gets from his family to buy a flat contrasts with the struggle that Emma and many other characters will face to pay rent. This gives Dexter more freedom to try to find his ideal job rather than settling for something he doesn’t love just to pay the bills (like Emma’s theatre job, for example). Dexter’s interest in photography reflects how he is interest in learning how to capture a moment, and this perhaps explains why even as more time passes, he will continue to think about the night in the past that he spent with Emma.
Themes
Dexter tells his mother he’s considering photography, and she makes fun of him for often putting his thumb on the camera lens during photos. She makes fun of the old photo project he did, and Dexter says it was just an idea. She says Dexter needs to get out of teaching because it clearly isn’t the right vocation for him. She warns him that he has an easy life now but that one day things might be more difficult for him. She says he needs to find a sense of purpose in life. When Dexter gets uncomfortable, she changes the subject and says she wants to take Dexter out to lunch somewhere expensive tomorrow. She hints that she has something serious to talk about but says she doesn’t want to do it currently while she’s drunk.
This passage shows how as much as Dexter feels lucky to have his parents, they also sometimes discourage him or even ridicule him when he tries to change, keeping him stuck in his ways. Still, Dexter’s mother also seems to sense that photography might just be a passing interest to Dexter and that to truly find purpose in life, he will need to find something he has a deeper connection to. Dexter’s mother’s decision to put off telling Dexter bad news until the next day reflects how in spite of her ability to advise Dexter about his future, she has her own fears and uncertainties about facing the future.
Themes
