Cell Phone Symbol Analysis

Dexter is an early adopter of cell phones, and the phone that he carries around (something the other characters will eventually own as well) represents the potential for people to miscommunicate and misunderstand each other despite advances in technology. Initially, Dexter’s cell phone is a status symbol, showing how his success as a television presenter allows him to afford the newest technology and how it keeps him so busy that he needs constant phone access. Emma, meanwhile, is skeptical of the need for a cell phone, but by the very next chapter, she has received one of her own, showing how trying to resist the latest technological trends can be futile, as the letters she and Dexter once exchanged get replaced by voicemails.

Despite Dexter’s early investment in the cell phone and his active social life in his youth, he becomes increasingly disconnected from the people around him as he ages. By the one-year anniversary of Emma’s death, he has almost no one in his life that he can communicate with, surrounding himself instead with employees from his café and later strangers at a strip club. Dexter ultimately realizes that the connections he made in his cell phone contacts are insignificant and that what’s more important is the substance of the relationships instead. This registers even more deeply the following day, when Dexter’s father helps him recover from a terrible night of drinking. Although Dexter and his father exchange few words, the caring actions of his father resonate with Dexter more than any of the superficial cell phone conversations he used to have. In One Day, the introduction of cell phones marks the passage of time, but their appearance throughout the book also reflects how despite the passage of time and the outward appearance of progress, human relationships and life in general remain complex, unpredictable, and uncertain. As such, people can’t rely on time alone to improve relationships and heal past wounds—they must consciously and constructively work on the relationships they care about and the communication that sustains them.