Revolutionary Road

A white house on a hill evokes several associations. First, it conjures images of power and prestige, like the American presidential residence (the White House). It also reminds one of the “city on a hill” from Jesus Christ’s Sermon on the Mount, which itself is used in American political rhetoric as a symbol of American exceptionalism and expansionism. Therefore, the fact that Frank and April live in a white house on a hill carries not only this symbolism, but it also expands that symbolism to signify the ideal of the 1950s American Dream and its conformist culture. The symbol consequently takes on a double-entendre with both positive and negative meanings. Its promises of strength and affluence come at a price. To live in the white house on the hill requires one to surrender opposing aspects of one’s individualism, and it requires conformity to a specific lifestyle. This lifestyle requires that the father works to provide material comforts for the family, the mother remains at home and cares for the house and children, and the children go to school and learn to become good and productive members of that society, take on the roles of their parents and continue the cycle.

Skyscrapers operate in the novel the same way they operated in American society. They came to symbolize American strength, ingenuity, prowess, and expansion. This also transfers over to their phallic representation, which plays an important role in the novel’s theme of masculinity. The number 15 in astrology and numerology is associated with change, creativity, and progress. All of these are associated with Frank and the work he does for Knox Business Machines and later with Bart Pollock. The association with change is myriad in the novel. Frank undergoes changes at work and in his marriage. April wants a complete change of life and to move to Paris, but Frank’s slow realization that he does not want this change leads to the breakup of his marriage. Of course, the notion of change affects April as much as it does Frank, meaning the number is significant for her as well.

It is of no coincidence that Richard Yates chose Robert Sherwood’s play The Petrified Forest for the Laurel Players and April Wheeler to enact. First, the Laurel Players and the theater establish the motif of theatricality and acting in the novel. All of the novel’s characters are playing at least one role, behind which they hide their true selves. Frank uses intellectualism to hide behind his willingness to conform; April plays the happy wife and mother, though she quickly removes that mask and becomes the novel’s most honest character; Shep has always hidden his softer side behind a tough-guy persona. Furthermore, April Wheeler and Gabby Maple, the play’s heroine, share much in common. Gabby incorporates both Frank’s desire for the arts and April’s desire to live in a liberal Europe. Consequently, Gabby’s relationship with Alan Squier, an English writer, mirrors April’s relationship with Frank. The parallel twists, however, when Alan dies to afford Gabby the chance to pursue her dreams; April’s death allows Frank not to live his dream, but the chance to conform and keep his job.

For the characters in the novel, Paris represents a more liberal alternative to American conservatism and capitalism. During the 1950s, the lines between capitalism and communism were made of iron. To counter Soviet communism and culture, America sought to create a distinctly American culture. The result was, ironically, just as conformist as the Soviet model, but it wore the façade of happiness, carefreeness, and affluence. Those Americans who found fault with American society and culture were not left with many options. The greatest counterculture in America at the time was offered by the Beatniks. Paris, especially because of the pre-war writings of authors such as Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald, became fixed in the American conscience as a city of intellectual freedom coupled with a milder form of capitalism.