The Day Before the Revolution is described as a character study that happens to use a science fiction setting. Science fiction critic George Slusser writes that it is "harshly realistic" in its focus on death and old age. White notes that the story resembles contemporary realistic fiction more than science fiction, arguing that it represents, along with The Dispossessed, part of a tonal shift in Le Guin's writing away from "romantic quests". Focusing on Odo's old age, rather than her period as an active revolutionary, Le Guin examines a person's essential motivations besides idealism. Odo acknowledges to herself sex and vanity, and also mulls over the happiness she had and then lost. Darren Harris-Fain called it a "moving depiction" of Odo, and stated that The Day Before the Revolution was among stories with thorough character development that demonstrated the literary worth of science fiction.
