Natasha Hulugalle
posted 22 February 2005

Revered as one of the finest realists of post-War American fiction, Richard Yates has recently enjoyed a posthumous renaissance. Classic works have been reissued, a new biography written and literary personalities queue up to express breathless admiration. Realism being equated with honesty, Yates inspires excitement because he exposes the disappointments and hypocrisy of the American dream effortlessly and with a devastatingly sure touch.

It would be fair to suggest however that his own troubled life often prompted him to overdose on literary realism. With The Easter Parade for example, Yates has been praised for the insight he shows towards the female characters. Despite this, he sometimes indulges his own sombre moods by luxuriating in the downward spiral of their emotional and material welfare. This is perhaps why it is Revolutionary Road instead that is considered his masterpiece. Published in 1961, it is an intensely loaded and painstaking snapshot free from any force-fed, relentless bitterness. Yates is unsparing with young married couple, Frank and April Wheeler, their disappointments and their retreat into suburbia. Fortunately, his message is well-defined and there is no suffering for the sake of suffering.

The eerily blank façade of 1950s suburbia that Yates describes is now very familiar and probably taken for granted by audiences. In fact, Revolutionary Road was perfectly conceived and written, tapping into a consciousness that was barely articulated at the time. Yates unmasks the ideal of the American pioneering spirit as a vast, empty promise, and this informs every crushed ambition of the Wheelers' life together and the dynamics of their marriage. Raised to believe that they can achieve any kind of life they want, the prosperity and contentment on offer is a burden rather than a reward. It enslaves and confuses them and is not the kind of freedom that they crave.

Yates is often name-checked by male writers as a personal influence, but the anguish of the chronically self-aware, educated classes is echoed in more unexpected places too. Paula Fox's elliptical portrait of 1960s hangover-inspired chattering class angst, Desperate Characters, for example, is a cunning exercise in paranoia and unspoken desperation. Fox's married couple, Otto and Sophie Bentwood, already have the comfortable and sophisticated European inspired lifestyle. As in Revolutionary Road, it is the wife who uneasily senses something potentially insincere in their worldview. Fox is a master of symbolism and she insinuates abstract, hostile elements to unsettle Otto and Sophie. The unmentionable fear is that the menacing, casually brash violence that surrounds their perfectly restored Brooklyn home is more vital and powerful than the enlightened values that they cherish so dearly.

Of the countless dysfunctional marriages in modern American literature, however, Frank and April Wheeler's marriage is surely one of the greatest. Admired for their youth, looks and ability to articulate intelligently, they represent everything that is desirable. Fearful of being absorbed by the modern American values that they deride, both seek an outlet for their frustration. The honesty that European style-intellectualism represents is the prized ideal, but this is as damaging to their self-image as the petty attitudes they despise.

The Wheelers are initially drawn together because they believe that each represents the uninhibited glamour that is essential to success. After several years of marriage however they are wearied by the mundane aspects of domesticity, their ambitions and intellectual attitudes now appear flimsy and shallow. Yates is quick to introduce their craving for a higher life, and the novel starts with the failure of a community theatre performance with April in the lead role. It is this play and April's embarrassing performance that prompts an already nagging suspicion that neither spouse can realise their own high standards.

'Nowhere in these plans had he forseen the weight and shock of reality; nothing had warned him that he might be overwhelmed by the swaying, shining vision of a girl he hadn't seen in years, a girl whose every glance and gesture could make his throat fill up with longing ('Wouldn't you like to be loved by me?'), and that then before his very eyes she would dissolve and change into the graceless, suffering creature whose existence he tried every day of his life to deny but he whom he knew as painfully as he knew himself…'

Like a young George and Martha in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, this is a contest rather than a marriage, punctuated with bursts of hysterical, renewed optimism. More than sad it is unsettling, and Yates captures their internal lives ruthlessly. As Frank secretly visualises April's triumph whilst maintaining a cool, urbane exterior, her performance is an unpleasant surprise and confirms their status with startling clarity. Yates mounts a peculiar suspense as both become gradually aware that their ideal lifestyle is not only unattainable, but that they are also unsuitable participants.

Perhaps because Yates chooses style and detail over heavy-handed moralising, Revolutionary Road is neither excessively judgmental or sentimental. Does Yates intend the Wheelers as victims, products of a certain spirit of an age, or does he want us to hold them responsible for their own frustrations? He exposes their pretensions and acts of selfishness, but also has both suffer from insecure childhoods. This is not however always a concession in their favour, and is often used as a tool to mock their pretensions.

Frank's experiences in the army during the Second World War leave him with a longing for European-style sophistication and a relentless urge to prove his worth. Both impulses become indivisible and colour his attitude towards April. Priding himself on his ability initially to have attracted such a 'first rate girl', he continues to rely on her reassurances to secure his own sense of importance.

'"Oh don't you know?" She brought his hand gently up her hip and around to the flat of her abdomen, where she pressed it close again. "Don't you know? You're the most valuable and wonderful thing in the world. You're a man". And of all the capitulations in his life, this was the one that most seemed like a victory.'

His need for her attention isn't only manifested in attempts to win her approval, but also in acts of defiance and betrayal.

Coupled with the reality of married life, this craving for self worth emasculates Frank. Yates explores this disturbingly in part two of the novel as April unwittingly challenges Frank and suggests that they escape suburbia and move with their two young children to Paris. As April is in full control of the decision, Frank becomes frightened by his own powerlessness, not only because of her assured confidence but also from the weight of expectation. Knowing he can't justifiably refuse a lifestyle that he has always publicly admired, he fears that in attempting to 'find himself' nothing will be found. His unspoken 'campaign' against the move to Paris descends into darkly played mind games as April announces an unwanted pregnancy. Campaigning for a baby he doesn't want and sacrificing a trip that he finds too threatening anyway, Frank is utterly confused as to his own true motives.

It would first appear that April also has a skewed, repressed ideal of the perfect life. Like Frank she inclines towards an artistic or intellectual lifestyle: carefree yet also maintaining a sense of integrity. Drawing on her time as a drama student and broken-home upbringing, Yates implies that she is merely a neurotic drama queen, and has Frank privately observe her melodramatic approach.

Unlike Frank however, April is willing to recognise their ideals as superficial posturing, and even voices her contempt. Struggling against her own pretensions, she values and aspires to real honesty. Informing Frank that she doesn't love him may appear selfish, but for April it is entirely necessary.

'What a subtle treacherous thing it was to let yourself go that way! Because once you'd started it was terribly difficult to stop; soon you were saying "I'm sorry of course you're right," and "Whatever you think is best," and "You're the most wonderful and valuable thing in the world," and the next thing you knew all honesty, all truth, was as far away and glimmering, as hopelessly unattainable as the world of golden people.'

Although both self-destruct, Frank chooses to remain oblivious whilst April craves some kind of clarity. She believes wholeheartedly that her method of self-destruction is honest rather than extreme and this highlights Yates' own uncomfortably nihilistic attitudes. The dazzle and allure of Europe that enthralls Frank and April indicates Yates following a long tradition. American novelists have always enthusiastically fictionalised young Americans rejecting the pursuit of material gain and becoming intoxicated by the promise of a more liberated, sensual kind of freedom. Often this would end tragically in the subtle corruption or spoiling of New World innocence by the decadence and amoral treachery of 'Old Europe'. Frank and April are typical candidates for such treatment, in believing that they will be able to live a better, more honest kind of life in Europe, where they will feel more alive.

'"How do you like this Oppenheimer business?" one of them would demand, and the others would fight for the floor with revolutionary zeal. The cancerous growth of senator McCarthy had poisoned the United States, and with the pouring of second or third drinks they could begin to see themselves as members of an embattled, dwindling intellectual underground. Clippings from the Observer or the Manchester Guardian would be produced and read aloud, to slow and respectful nods; Frank might talk wistfully of Europe - "God, I wish we'd taken off and gone there when we had the chance" - and this might lead to a quick general lust for expatriation: "Lets all go!"'

Under this pressure constantly to question and analyse, both Frank and April are imprisoned by their own intellects. Self-analysis is seen as a virtue, but it is not used as a means to greater awareness or an improved self image. As a European import, psychoanalysis is given the stamp of approval, but it is used either as a weapon or a refuge. Frank attempts to out-manoeuvre April by suggesting that she visit a psychoanalyst, implying that she is fundamentally, psychologically flawed. Even though he improvises his reasons for such a suggestion, April respects and fears his use of Freudian language.

Characters who take psychoanalysis too literally are thus branded unnatural or insane. All Yates' characters have some degree of self-awareness, but are usually reluctant or too afraid to accept this knowledge. The honest are punished and April suffers for her insight, as does John Givings, the disturbed son of the Wheelers' pathetically optimistic real estate agent.

The rebellious and destructive agonising that Yates offers still reads as subversive. Frank and April do not provoke impatience, as do the many characters in contemporary fiction who only manage to promote an absurd middle class ennui. In contrast, Revolutionary Road is both fascinating and disturbing. This reflects Yates' skill for navigating the complexities of his characters within the wider context of an unforgiving society. His charting of the descent of American consciousness away from the cliché of pioneering, blind optimism and exuberance to weary insecurity and alienation is an achievement that reaches beyond any genre.