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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, July 15, 1995. Emma has tried to write a lot of different kinds of books with no success. Her current project of starting detective series also isn’t going well. She is still living with Ian, and although she’s tried to make him tone down the frequencies of his jokes, he still tells a lot of them. Ian asks to read Emma’s manuscript, but she says it’s terrible, and she hasn’t finished much anyway. Despite Emma’s initial reluctance, she and Ian bought a place together to save on rent. The place is still a bit of a mess, and it’s so small that even Ian’s cooking is enough to set off the fire alarm.
Emma’s continued relationship with Ian, in spite of the fact that she seems to like him less as time goes on, shows how she is once again finding herself stuck in a rut. Still, as much as Ian’s constant jokes and failures at stand-up annoy Emma, she herself struggles to write anything that she can be proud of. Rather than marking a milestone in intimacy, Emma’s decision to move in with Ian instead seems to be a regression, as she loses the independence she had when she moved away from Tilly.
Themes
Ian has heard that Dexter is taking Emma out to dinner and asks questions about it. Emma says she won’t go if Ian doesn’t want her to. He insists he doesn’t mind and that he has a paid gig anyway, but he seems to mind. Emma reminds Ian that Dexter is already dating Suki, and Emma tells Ian she loves him. Still, privately, she panics that maybe she doesn’t have feelings for Ian and is building a life with someone she doesn’t actually love.
Ian may lack the self-awareness to know when his jokes aren’t working, but he continues to be able to see things about Dexter and Emma’s relationship that Emma herself seems unable to observe sometimes. Emma says she loves Ian but continues to doubt it to herself, showing how she is increasingly living a lie.
Themes
Dexter’s mornings after his Friday-night show are always rough. Although people still hate him, this seems to be good for ratings. He did a spread in a magazine recently and secretly hopes to get more into modeling. He set up his own production company, Mayhem TV, to try to gain more industry credibility, but so far, the company is just a logo. Dexter has slowly been cutting ties with old friends like Callum that he no longer has time for. After he sees Emma in the evening, he plans to ditch her and go to a big house party.
Dexter learns that his unpopularity has the counter-intuitive effect of actually driving up ratings of his show. He finds that he is willing to sacrifices his reputation and dignity for the sake of success. His formation of his own production company, while not especially well thought out, reflects a desire for more legitimacy and more control over what he does.
Themes
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Ian leaves for his standup gig, and Emma thinks about how quickly the new house’s novelty has worn off. She turns on the TV and sees Suki Meadows conducting a search for Britain’s Most Talented Pet. She considers calling Dexter, although she and him haven’t gotten along well recently, often canceling plans at the last minute.
Dexter’s cell phone makes it easier for Emma to contact him at any time, offering a much faster alternative to the letters she used to write. But this improvement in technology does nothing to change the other barriers that exist between Dexter and Emma, like Dexter’s pattern of canceling plans with her.
Themes
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Meanwhile, after filming, Suki calls Dexter on his cell phone to tell him how excited she was to see a dog playing drums. He’s standing outside Bar Italia, a restaurant in Soho. Dexter tells her there’s no need to shout, and she hangs up on him. Just then Emma arrives and Dexter’s mood brightens. She tells him he should get rid of his cell phone and she takes a bet with him that she herself will never have a cell phone. He takes the bet, claiming she’ll have one within her lifetime, possibly within six months.
This passage reinforces the idea that while the cell phone is an incredibly powerful new piece of communication technology, people tend to use it for insignificant things, like when Suki tells Dexter about the dog she saw playing drums. While Dexter dislikes change, he balances this by being quick to adopt popular new gadgets, like the cell phone. His bet that Emma will have her own phone soon proves true, showing how sometimes it is inevitable to try to avoid the march of technological advances.
Themes
Dexter leads Emma into a large restaurant called Poseidon’s, which looks expensive. He insists on buying her a nice cocktail. A beautiful woman in a corset and stockings comes over to sell cigarettes. Emma is caught off guard and refuses. Dexter buys Marlboro Lights and tells the woman to keep the change, seeming satisfied with himself. Emma says the cigarette girls seem like something out of Playboy, but Dexter insists it’s just “post-feminism.” They argue about whether the woman actually has any choice in what she wears or if she needs to wear it for her job.
The woman who sells cigarettes represents many of Dexter’s various addictions at once—cigarettes, sex, and the appeal of night life and partying. Although Dexter argues that the woman’s old-fashioned way of dressing is ironic, it perhaps appeals to the part of him that is afraid of change and the future, which drives him to take refuge in the past instead.
Themes
Emma is still angry but suggests changing the subject. She looks at the menu and is surprised that it isn’t fancy French food or anything like that, just more expensive versions of British pub basics. She tells Dexter he seems to be more knowledgeable about food lately, and he says he’s been offered to write a weekly column about cocktail bars. After ordering, Dexter goes to the bathroom, taking his second martini with him and staying a long time. Each of them feels that the dinner is going poorly, but each still secretly loves the other.
The fact that the restaurant Dexter likes sells supposedly fancier versions of British pub food perhaps reflects his conservative taste, even though Dexter has traveled the world and had the chance to explore all kinds of different cuisines. The food column that Dexter says he’s been offered initially seems to be another pursuit, like photography once was, that will never go anywhere, but in fact, Dexter later chapters will reveal that Dexter is getting closer to discovering what he wants to do in life.
Themes
On his way back from the restroom, Dexter finds the cigarette girl again, buys another pack, then asks when her shift ends. He comes back to Emma, who jokes that he was away so long, she thought he fell in. Dexter says one of his poker friends, who is also a baronet, is having a party later. He invites Emma, who seems skeptical of whether she’s actually welcome. Suki will also be there. Emma says she likes Suki, although she’s only met her once.
Even when he’s in a relationship with Suki and at a dinner with Emma, Dexter can’t help flirting with the cigarette girl, once again showing how sex is another addiction for him. In his conversations with Emma, Dexter shows how obsessed with status he continues to be, like when he makes sure to mention that his poker friend is a baronet.
Themes
Dexter offers to give Emma money so that she can take a cab back after the party, but she refuses. She asks again if she’s really welcome, and he insists on her coming. Dexter asks about Ian. Emma would like to confide in him about her doubts about her relationship with Ian, but she fears Dexter is in a fighting mood, so she lies and says everything with Ian is great. She asks about his steak, and he says it’s amazing. But when he asks about her fish, she reveals that it’s frozen and wasn’t defrosted.
Emma’s frozen fish shows how careless the restaurant is despite its fanciness and high prices. In many ways, the restaurant reflects Dexter’s own way of going through life and focusing on superficial glamor. The fact that Emma waited so long to bring up such a major flaw in the restaurant represents how she is holding back and feels unable to open up to Dexter in general. For instance, she’s reticent to express her doubt about her relationship with Ian.
Themes
Dexter wants to send back the frozen fish, but Emma doesn’t want to cause a problem. Dexter nevertheless brings over a waiter and makes Emma order something new, insisting to the waiter that it should be free. She orders a salad that arrives, but she doesn’t want it. Emma wants to cry. Dexter says sarcastically that things seem to be going well. He changes the subject and asks her about her teaching job, then implies that she should be trying to do something better than teaching.
This passage once again highlights the class differences between Dexter and Emma, as her experience of working in a restaurant makes her reluctant to cause problems, while his own more privileged background makes him feel confident to demand free things from the waiter as compensation.
Themes
Emma gets angry and says that Dexter is drunk—in fact, she hasn’t seen him sober in three years. She says his own job as a TV presenter isn’t that impressive either. He says she’s getting “hysterical.” Emma calls him “obnoxious” in return and says he’s not the person she used to know. She wonders if maybe their friendship should be over. Dexter is surprised and says that even though he’s frustrated with her, he never considered that possibility.
“Hysterical” is a loaded word that can have sexist undertones as a way to dismiss the opinions of women (indeed, the word derives from hystera, the Greek word for “womb”). Meanwhile, Emma’s description of Dexter as "obnoxious” recalls the poor reviews he’s been getting in newspapers. Still, in spite of Dexter’s frustrations with Emma, his desire to maintain the status quo means that he never even considers ending their friendship until Emma brings it up.
Themes
In deciding to cut Dexter out of her life, Emma is nevertheless honest with Dexter in a way that she hasn’t been lately with Ian, showing how lack of conflict doesn’t necessarily mean a good relationship.
Themes
When Emma gets home, she tells Ian how poorly dinner went. He admits that his gig went bad too and there was a lot of heckling. Emma tries to reassure him that that happens, but he starts to worry sometimes that he might not actually be funny. Emma reassures him that he is. This pleases him. He’s been daydreaming ways to propose to Emma for weeks. Meanwhile, it turns out the cigarette girl rejected Dexter’s party invitation because she was already engaged to a former football player. Also, she vaguely recognized Dexter from TV and knew he was going out with Suki.
Once again, Emma’s willingness to confront Dexter about his faults contrasts with how she continues to lie to Ian about his skill as a comedian, even when after Ian admits that he himself has doubts. Emma’s refusal to be honest with Ian gives him the wrong idea, leading him to think of proposal when she isn’t even sure if she loves Ian at this point.
Themes
