Revolutionary Road

Chapter 5 provides greater insight into Frank’s past and his relationship with his father. In many ways, Frank both idealized and criticized his father’s job and character. On the one hand, his father was strong and masculine, but he was also a low-level salesman and was obsequious in his dealings with Mr. Oat Fields. Through the memory, the reader is reminded of the symbolism of power and growth represented by skyscrapers, a symbol of American expansion, ingenuity, and strength. As a phallic symbol, skyscrapers can also be used to highlight negative aspects of American society, particularly Masculinity Against the Backdrop of 1950s Conformist Society. The reader learns that Frank gets a job in the very building that filled him with so much awe as a boy and works on the 15th floor. The number 15 carries with it its own symbolism, representing change, creativity, and progress in numerology. The reasons for Frank getting a job at Knox provide important insights into his character and establish a precedent that will be important later on. He makes sure he gets a job without using his father’s name as a reference. By doing so, he establishes his superiority over his father because he acquires a higher-status job than his father had without any outside assistance. Furthermore, the job was only supposed to be temporary and so uninteresting that it would never require Frank to end his intellectual pursuits. At that point in his past, Frank was the man April thinks he still is when she proposes her plan in to move to Paris. Importantly, neither Frank nor April has noticed the change in him, that he is no longer that young intellectual. Aside from providing character development, Chapter 5 furthers the plot along and initiates the affair between Maureen and Frank.

Chapter 6 continues with the beginning moments of the affair. It is revealed that Maureen is one of the many in the 1950s who moved to the cities in search of employment, especially women who found increased independence and self-determination during the war when they entered factories to replace the male workforce that had gone off to war. When the war ended, many did not relinquish those jobs easily or desired to become homemakers. This type is represented primarily through Maureen’s roommate, Norma. Furthermore, during Frank and Maureen’s lunch conversation, the reader learns how Frank perceives himself and how he wishes to be perceived by others: like a man. The subsequent act of lovemaking following lunch and Frank’s elation highlights aspects of Frank’s definition of manliness and masculinity. For Frank, sex—specifically, the act of seduction—is a cornerstone thereof. The way he seduces and makes love to Maureen establishes a pattern of behavior that is slowly revealed, meaning that Frank behaved similarly when wooing April and the greatest difference separating the two women is that Frank married April. Of course, Frank’s feelings of manly conquest are broken when he arrives home and he is faced with a penitent wife and loving family, with which he hadn’t reckoned, forcing him to face the guilt of his actions sooner than he would have liked.

Chapter 7 picks up where Chapter 6 left off: April’s apology. Her apology segues into her plan to get her, Frank, and the kids out of the situation that caused her to need to apologize in the first place. In April’s desire to move to Paris, she echoes a similar desire as the character she played in The Petrified Forest, Gabby Mable, as well as the sentiments of many Americans at that time. France was still viewed by many as the world center of intellectualism and liberalism. France had a much more liberal view of race and sex than the US at the time, and it was led by intellectual giants such as Jean-Paul Sartre (whom Frank mentions in Chapter 2), Simone de Beauvoir, Claude Lévi-Strauss, and many others. For April, Paris would mean a chance for her to escape the stifling existence of being a suburban wife and mother. She craves more self-determination and personal freedom than that role can offer her. Parisian intellectualism is supposed to cater to Frank’s wishes, to offer him something grand, because, throughout the years, Frank has tried to establish himself as an intellectual trapped in a conformist society and by familial responsibilities. April will remain true to the plan and herself, but Frank will slowly realize the farce of who he has purported to be and not only change his views, but force April to question herself completely.