“Can literature reveal human truths, and if so, what kinds of truths?” This was the question posed to our English Lit class after having read the novel ‘Revolutionary Road’ by Richard Yates. The book tells the story of an unhappily married couple, Frank and April, who dream that they are meant for something more glamorous than the mundanity of suburban life.
Written in the 60s as an indictment of the need for conformity in the US, ‘Revolutionary Road’ presents the lives of Frank and April to seemingly fulfill every aspect of the American Dream – the white picket fence, clean lawn, two kids, husband with a steady, decent job married to his wife who plays the role of homemaker – reflective of the middle-class ideals at the time. Yet, their clean, suburban lifestyle is merely a facade to hide their crumbling marriage and disappointment at the inefficacy and banality of middle-class life. As April put it, people of the time had this “enormous, obscene delusion—this idea that people have to resign from real life and ‘settle down’ when they have families. It’s the great sentimental lie of the suburbs,” not only presenting her unhappiness with stultifying suburban life, but her desire to break free of societal expectations to conform and her frustration at her inability to do so. Frank and April are not the only characters putting on a facade, as Yates initially presents the other characters, Shep and Milly Campbell to be a happy, loving couple, but later reveals Shep’s lust for April and disgust with his own wife. Similarly, the Wheeler’s neighbour, Mrs. Givings, who upholds the standards of middle-class respectability, too, has a failed marriage with her husband who does not care to listen to her and is ashamed of her mentally insane son, John. Yates illustrates the lives and facades of each of these characters as reflective of the pressure to conform during the 1950s, as the traditional roles of men being breadwinners and women staying home were reaffirmed after the war.
Apart from being discontented with dull lives in suburbia, Frank and April, particularly the latter, long for a change in their lives. Their failing marriage is temporarily revived by April’s idea of moving to Paris, where she would go out to work and Frank would have time to “discover himself” at home; a clear switching of traditional roles in a marriage that would allow for them both to achieve their goals for self-fulfillment. The thrilling prospect of moving to a glamorous, vibrant city restores the couple’s love for each other, but it is idealistic and short-lived, reflective of Yates’ portrayal of the start of Frank and April’s relationship, when, as Frank was trying to court April, he lied and said he could speak French and knew how to navigate Paris in an effort to impress her. Much like her admiration for her “dazzling and glamorous” parents, April’s attraction to Frank was initially based on his connection to exciting places like Paris. Frank, on the other hand, sought validation from other people in his youth that he was great and interesting, as he loved when “he was admired… that men, and intelligent men at that, could actually want to listen to him talk.” Thus when April says to him, “You’re the most interesting person I’ve ever met,” he interprets this validation of his intellect as a sign of love. The love between Frank and April was idealistic at best and their relationship is built on “telling easy, agreeable lies” and “saying what the other person most wanted to hear,” as April, who was raised by her aunts, seeks to be loved by someone equally as glamorous as her socialite parents, and Frank seeks the approval of others of his status as an “intellect.” Through this, Yates illustrates a common human flaw, saying things you know other people want to hear, as opposed to the truth, that can eventually lead to having false expectations and a marriage based on pretence and lies.
It is also Frank’s need to feel validated that ends the possibility of the move to Paris, as April discovers she is pregnant with their third child. Just like with their first child, Frank is adamant that April does not go through with an abortion, as Yates suggests that it is not the morality of abortion that disturbs Frank, but April’s detachment and aloofness towards him, and his child, that translates to a lack of love. Additionally, Frank feels his manliness is validated when April is willing to have his child, thus his refusal to let her abort the baby, as “it seemed to him now that no single moment of his life had ever contained a better proof of hanhood than that, if any proof were needed: holding that tamed, submissive girl and saying “Oh, my lovely; oh, my lovely,” while she promised she would bear his child.” Through Frank’s insistence on keeping both his first and third children, Yates reveals yet another common fatal flaw, the masculine need to feel validated through controlling the actions of other people and making them submissive. Yates suggests that with the prospect of moving to France meaning April taking the typically male role of breadwinner from him, combined with the promotion he receives at his current job, the pregnancy comes as a relief to Frank, who is shown to never have wanted to go to Paris as much as April does, but rather enjoyed the positive effect the promise of France had in mending his relationship with his wife. Frank’s prevention of April getting an abortion not only stops her plan to move to Paris, which, to her, symbolises freedom and independence, but reaffirms his control over her, reflective of societal expectations of women during this time to fall in line and play the submissive role of loving wife and mother.
April’s longing for independence and frustration at the lack of control over her life results in her first successful rebellion against Frank and societal norms – her affair with Shep Campbell. However, the brief moment of defiance is not enough to satiate her dissatisfaction with her stifling life. As the plot reaches its climax, Yates writes in April’s point of view, in contrast to the Frank-heavy perspective for the majority of the novel. Yates shows April’s attempt to break free of her restrictive life through allowing her voice to come through in the final moments of the novel, before she attempts to self-abort the baby and dies. Through April’s actions, Yates illustrates a darker truth about the effects of a society that controls the lives of women and restricts their independence, that suffocating social conventions will lead to attempts to escape these confinements, whether it be through moving to a different country, having an affair, or, in April’s case – suicide. April is a literary representation of the struggles American women experienced during the post-war era, as even in “the land of the free,” there were those who were made to conform to the norms set by a society seeking to maintain the status quo.
