--What do you make of the role of alcoholism in the novel?
--What role do you think each of the Wheelers’ extra-marital affairs had both in terms of defining the story and each of their characters?
--What do you make of the role of parenthood in the novel and Yates' commentary of it? As exhibited by Frank's and April's parents, Frank and April themselves, the Givings', the Campbells'?
--I mean, can we avoid it: abortion? It comes up at two distinct points in the story and the lives of Frank and April. How is it used by the characters and by Yates throughout Revolutionary Road?
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I'd like to add two bits o'miscellany:
ReplyDelete--The notion of determinism, particularly causal determinism, kept popping into my head as I read. All the events--even the shocking ones--felt...ordered to me. Anybody else feel like there was never any getting off this train once it left the station? Given the free will the Wheelers kept espousing and congratulating themselves on, I never once got the sense either of them had enough to do anything other than exactly what they did. Which may have been Yates' point. I mean, by the time the boiled water's cooled, April's practically humming Amor Fati to herself....
--Awful lot of talk about head shrinkers throughout, from John's ineffectual doctor at the hospital to Frank's suggestion April see one to resolve her issues, and, especially, Milly's emphasis at the end on Frank's relationship with his analyst in the city, who's helping him with his daddy issues. Given the coarseness of his masculinity, I doubt Yates featured psychoanalysis so prominently without a good reason. (Damned if I know what it is though.)
Ibid the war/the service/combat: sure does come up a bunch. Wonder why?
I think that the war comes up a lot because it changed how America operated, and Yates realized that. We didn't have suburban sprawl before GI housing loans made that possible. We didn't have widespread college educated people until the GI Bill. I don't know that anyone thought that they should emmigrate to Europe from the US prior to WWII. We thought that they were inferior to us. Also, the idea of women working outside the home was very uncommon prior to the war. When a woman got married she quit her job and let her husband take care of her. Women held jobs as secretaries, librarians, and operators, and mostly only if they were single.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure why the head shrinkers come up so much though. Popularity of the idea at the time?
I already mentioned Abortion elsewhere.
Maybe the Wheelers wouldn't have had as many problems if they weren't drunk all the time.
I think that the war comes up a lot because it was the time in their lives when Frank and Shep felt a sense of purpose and connectedness with other people.
ReplyDeleteOh, and the alcohol! COPIOUS AMOUNTS of alcohol! I wanted to lecture them the way my mother used to lecture us about the Evils of Drink: "You know, Wheelers, alcohol is a depressant. Your problems will still be there when you sober up, and while you're drunk they'll seem even worse than they really are." Ugh, maybe if they had both had clear heads for more than five minutes at a time they could have come to some kind of resolution about their lives.
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