Ryan Guerrero

9/17/21

ENGLISH I-ENGL-1100-17

Andrew daSilva

Revolutionary Road Essay

Revolutionary Road, Personal Summary

this book. If I were in a library and stumble upon Richard Yates Revolutionary Road and look at

the bland cover and name. I would not pick the book up, I would simply keep walking. Richard

Yates struggled with alcoholism and suffered from bipolar disorder, which could never be

properly medicated because he refused to quit drinking. Yates was born in Yonkers, New York,

and most of his early years were spent in different houses. He would later study at the Old Farms

School, and he joined the Army during the Second World War. Upon returning to New York, he

worked as a freelance ghostwriter for various companies, including the PR firm Remington Rand

Corporation.

His first novel, Revolutionary Road, was published in 1961. He also wrote the screenplay

for the film adaptation of Lie Down in Darkness. In 1948, he married Sheila Bryant, the daughter

of Marjorie Gilhooley Bryant and British actor Charles Bryant, who lived with Broadway actress

and silent-film star Alla Nazimova from 1912 to 1925 during the height of her wealth and fame.

Richard and Sheila Yates had two daughters, Sharon and Monica, before divorcing in 1959.

Richard married Martha Speer in 1968 and they had a daughter, Gina. Richard being a heavy

smoker his entire life, in 1992, he died of emphysema and complications from minor surgery in

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Birmingham, Alabama. Richard Yates struggled when it came to picking book covers and names.

Perhaps his drinking blocked his creativity when thinking of book titles.

Richard Yates' debut novel, Revolutionary Road, was released in 1961. It was a finalist

for the 1962 National Book Award, and it received critical acclaim. In 2005, it was named one of

the best English-language novels of the twentieth century by TIME. When DeWitt Henry and

Geoffrey Clark interviewed Yates for the Winter 1972 issue of literary journal Ploughshares,

Yates said “I think I meant it more as an indictment of American life in the 1950s. Because

during the Fifties there was a general lust for conformity all over this country, by no means only

in the suburbs—a kind of blind, desperate clinging to safety and security at any price.”. In 2008,

a film adaptation of Kate Winslet's book "Revolution" starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate

Hudson, and Kathy Bates was released.

The novel focuses on April and Frank Wheeler, who live in the Revolutionary Hill

Estates. At the start of the book, April is in an embarrassingly bad performance of The Petrified

Forest. After realizing that Frank's ambition is to be an office worker, April convinces him to

move to Paris. While they're there, he realizes that he doesn't want to be a typical suburbanite.

When April sees the opportunity to escape the dreary environment, Frank's plan is more driven

by his vanity than his intelligence.

The couple's plans to move to Europe are suddenly jeopardized when April gets pregnant.

Frank begins to identify with his job at work, and he eventually learns about his wife's troubled

childhood. April tries to self-abort herself and is rushed to the hospital, where she dies from

blood loss. Frank is left with a hollow heart after the incident. As a result, his parenting duties

are shifted to his brother and sisters-in-law.

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As I finished reading Revolutionary Road one thing that stood out to me was what

Mrs.Givings said at the end of the story when talking with her husband. She started to talk about

the new people buying the house that Frank and April lived in and said “And do you know, I was

just thinking. I’ve loved that little house for years, and these are the first really suitable people

I’ve ever found for it. Really nice, congenial people, I mean.”(Yates, Revolutionary Road 354).

Mrs.Givings husband then says “Well, he said, except for the Wheelers, you mean.”(Yates,

Revolutionary Road 354) . Mrs.Givings says “Well, but I mean really congenial people...Our

kind of people. Oh, I was very fond of the Wheelers, but they always were a bit—a bit

whimsical, for my taste. A bit neurotic. I may not have stressed it, but they were often very

trying people to deal with, in many ways. Actually, the main reason the little house has been so

hard to sell is that they let it depreciate so dreadfully. Warped window frames, wet cellar, crayon

marks on the walls, filthy smudges around all the doorknobs and fixtures—really careless,

destructive things. And that awful stone path going halfway down the front lawn and ending in a

mud puddle—can you imagine anyone defacing a property like that? It’s going to cost Mr. Brace

a small fortune to get it cleared away and replanted. No, but it was more than that. The kind of

thing I mean goes deeper than that.”(Yates, Revolutionary Road 354). Following with “It’s just

that they were a rather strange young couple. Irresponsible. The guarded way they’d look at you;

the way they’d talk to you; unwholesome, sort of. Oh, and another thing. Do you know what I

came across in the cellar? All dead and dried out? I came across an enormous box of sedum

plantings that I must have spent an entire day collecting for them last spring. I remember very

carefully selecting the best shoots and very tenderly packing them in just the right kind of

soil—that’s the kind of thing I mean, you see. Wouldn’t you think that when someone goes to a

certain amount of trouble to give you a perfectly good plant, a living, growing thing, wouldn’t

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you think the very least you’d do would be to—” (Yates, Revolutionary Road 354-355) the

conversation cuts out as her husband had turned off his hearing aid.

It brings me to my point about change and how many people neglect change because of

how comfortable they are with themselves. Many people think change is for the bad but change

is nature, change is inevitable. But why in this book do these characters never change the bad

things about themselves? Why is it that everyone that wants to act higher class in this book is just

the common stereotypes of Rich snobby people? It makes me wonder how maybe Yates'

intention was to demonstrate how money can't buy happiness.

In Revolutionary Road, the main characters don't seem to learn or evolve, as they often

feel that they don't belong. The characters don't really evolve or transcend their limitations. They

try to but they fail. In the story when it moves to Shep's view, Shep now describes Frank as

almost feminine. He is also different from the character he used to see as a role model. In Part 1,

he hated sentimentality, but he also railed against how the sanitization of emotions could make

people feel better.

The changes brought about by April's death are not significant enough to alter the course

of the novel. Instead, the end mirrors the beginning. By showing failure and sadness, but at the

same time many people flaws. After the Wheelers' flaws are exposed, Mrs. Givings changes her

mind about them. She realizes they were never truly set apart from one another. One of the main

points of the novel is that people do not communicate. In Howard's case, he drowns out the petty

complaints of his wife by choosing silence. “But from there on Howard Givings heard only a

welcome, thunderous sea of silence. He had turned off his hearing aid.” ( Yates, Revolutionary

Road, 355). This shows the lack of communication in a couple’s relationship who is having a

conversation and the other chooses to no longer listen. Not only is there lack of communication

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but there is a alos a lack of respect for their partner for not even taking the time to listen and

ending the conversation properly.

A main problem many characters in Revolutionary Road struggle with, especially the

men, is their masculinity. When April proposes moving to Europe with Frank, he's worried that

she'll be able to support the family. Shep is also taken by surprise when he learns about the plan.

The couple's escape plot points are tied to gender expectations. He associates himself with

predatory conquests, and when he seduces May, he compares himself to an animal. April

convinces Frank to leave his job, and he feels entitled to more autonomy. When she promises to

name their son after him, he becomes more masculine. April is a reluctant mother who is

convinced that Frank should have the family he wants. Her thoughts on feminism are often

compared to those of Madame Bovary, a character in a fictional novel. John, however, believes

that she is "female." During this period, women were still expected to be good wives and

mothers.

Another problem that is easily noticeable in this novel is untreated mental illnesses. John

Givings is the only character in The Wheelers who has mental illness. The theme of mental

illness often comes up in other characters' stories. Many of the people in the book are worried

that their environment could lead to mental instability. During the 1950s, anxiety was often

referred to as the inevitable outcome of living in a world plagued by mental instability. Through

the use of metaphor, these individuals explored how mental disorders can provide a variety of

meanings for people.

In a book full of characters who often tell themselves that they're not true, John is the

only voice of truth that can be heard clearly. He often sees the desperation of the Wheelers and

their disdain for Frank. April is another character who has been associated with mental illness. In

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Part 1, Frank believes that his relatively stable background makes him more emotionally

balanced, while living in the suburbs makes him unhappy. In Part 3 of her book, April shows her

lack of understanding of the world around her. For instance, she doesn't know what a moral life

is like when people talk about it. In Part 3, April realizes that her confusion is not just an

emotional disturbance. It also undermines her own grip on reality. Frank later uses this

vulnerability against her by accusing her of insanity when she says she doesn't love him.

In conclusion, Richard Yates depicted characters in this novel that not only struggled

facing their realities but also the cold truth of a society that struggles to fit into society's norm. I

think in some way he relates to many of the characters in his story. His personal struggle with

alcohol and not being able to choose between not drinking in order to be able to take medication.

This also in my opinion demonstrates his similarity to Frank. His inability to stand up for himself

and make things better for himself. They both lacked character and confidence from my point of

view. His failed marriages also is something he seems to relate to with the characters in his story.

The difference being that he did get out of them and remarried. The characters in his story

continue to stay married and live unhappily. Although I did not enjoy reading this book, I think

he wonderfully depicted the lives of many people who during this period conformed to a life

they were not happy with in order to simply fit in.

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WORK CITED
(Richcard Yates , Revolutionary Road, December 31, 1961
https://www.kkoworld.com/kitablar/richard_yeyts_deyishiklikler_kuchesi-eng.pdf )

(Wiki-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutionary_Road#Literary_significance)