Austerity, Consumption, and Postwar Gender Disruption in Mollie Panter-Downes's One Fine Day

In her 1947 novel, Panter-Downes explores changes in gender roles and domesticity brought on by World War II, particularly through her narrative emphasis on postwar scarcity and ongoing food rationing. The text displays the impact of this everyday quality on the life of one English family and details, through explorations of changing patterns of consumption, ways in which middle-class expectations for domesticity were radically altered by wartime policies. While much scholarship that focuses on World War II-era women's writing looks at how authors responded to the war itself, this article illustrates how for many, quotidian elements such as food rationing were stand-ins for the war; therefore, examinations of domestic disruption extend our understanding of how World War II left its imprint on cultural production. Examinations of texts such as One Fine Day allow for a more complete understanding of the war and of its impact on women's lives.