"To hell with reality! Let's have a whole bunch of cute little winding roads and cute little houses painted white and pink and baby blue; let's all be good consumers and have a lot of Togetherness and bring our children up in a bath of sentimentality -- and if old reality ever does pop out and say Boo we'll all get busy and pretend it never happened."
Connecticut is New York's suburb. That's what a lot of people joke about whenever the state is brought up, at least. According to 2010 Census Bureau information, approximately 118,000 Connecticuters commute to a different state to work, the vast majority of them going to New York City. Three of Connecticut's western counties (Fairfield, New Haven, and Litchfield) make up part of the Tri-State Area along with New York and New Jersey, and the affluent families that can afford to live there make it one of the most expensive areas in the country to live in.
As one of the six New England states, there are definitely parts of Connecticut that don't feel like an extension of New York City. Usually this refers to the parts of the state that lie north and west of the capital city of Hartford, or areas that are more culturally and economically similar to neighboring Massachusetts and Rhode Island, respectively. However, try as they might to be included, whether or not Connecticut is "really" a New England state is a source of smack talk between Connecticuters and their neighbors. One New England tourism website even made local headlines by forgetting to include Connecticut as one of the New England states. On the other hand, similar websites have sometimes forgotten to include Vermont and Rhode Island, so it could have just been a fluke. Or was it done on purpose?
Regardless, there's no denying that Connecticut has an appeal as a safe place for people wanting to get away from the hustle and bustle of New York City and into a more relaxing and routine suburban lifestyle. It's that exact lifestyle, specifically the battle to maintain your individuality while living around conformity, that is the primary theme of Richard Yates's Revolutionary Road.
Set in western Connecticut in the 1950s, Revolutionary Road follows Frank and April Wheeler, a young married couple that appear to be living the ideal American Dream lifestyle. They had moved out of their drab New York City apartment, bought a house in the quiet, rural Connecticut suburbs, and are now in the process of bringing up two kids in that same peace and quiet. Frank has a steady job in New York that he commutes to by train. April is a homemaker who wants nothing more than to please. Life seems good for the Wheelers.
This little bit about the Wheeler family is all backstory up to where the novel begins. The novel actually starts at a time in the Wheeler's relationship when everything is far less ideal compared to the picture they give their neighbors. Frank is bored with his job and envisions himself doing grander things for a living, blaming his inability to act on those dreams on living in suburbia. According to Frank, living in the suburbs means living around people who are content to live the most mediocre lives they can, and these same people stifle the creativity and growth of unique individuals like himself. He begins to feel like he's held down by his home and family, which makes him despise April. He eventually begins an affair with a secretary at his office, giving him the outlet for the excitement that he's been craving.
April, who feels as though she's the one who's been keeping Frank from achieving his own brand of success, proposes that the family all pack up their home and move to Paris. She has it all figured out; once they arrive, she would become the primary breadwinner and give Frank the time he needs to discover himself and find his true passion. Frank jumps on the idea, agreeing that life in the suburbs just doesn't fit a brilliant, self-proclaimed genius like himself. This decision puts a new spark in their marriage, and for a while, their relationship actually fits the image that they show the rest of the neighborhood.
Life has other plans for the Wheelers. April becomes pregnant with a third child. Frank's career has taken a turn for the better when he's offered a promotion and he actually starts to enjoy his job. April, distraught at the idea that she might be holding Frank back further and jeopardizing their plans to move to Paris, breaks the news that she's going to abort the baby. This once again starts an unraveling of the Wheeler's relationship. Frank insults April by suggesting that the only reason she's behaving this way is due to a psychological need to please and be accepted by everyone on account of her loveless childhood. April shocks Frank by telling him that the only reason she didn't abort their second child was to prove to herself that their first "wasn't a mistake."
Frank resumes his affair with the office secretary, while a confused and bewildered April has a one-night stand with their neighbor and family friend. Later on, Frank confesses to April about the affair, but April responds by saying it no longer matters because there's no love left between them.
The novel reaches its end when Frank leaves for work after trying to make things up with April once more. She attempts to perform an abortion but is unable to control her bleeding. She manages to dial 911 and is later rushed to the hospital, but dies due to blood loss. Frank, overwhelmed with both grief and guilt, takes the kids and moves back into the city.
"You're painfully alive in a drugged and dying culture."
Throughout Revolutionary Road is the struggle to maintain a sense of individuality in the face of constant pressures to conform and settle for what some perceive to be mediocrity. A setting of a generic suburb outside of the bustling landscape of New York City fits this theme well; moving to the suburbs and settling down with a family and a stable, but sometimes uneventful career is often seen as the time when a young person puts away their adventurous, carefree, maybe even reckless lifestyle and becomes an adult.
This balance of individuality and conformity is faced both by Frank and April, and its their acceptance of conformity that more or less leads to their downfall. Frank's ego and self-aggrandizing fall short of the benefits of getting a promotion and staying where he is. April throws away her individuality early on and forces herself into making a sacrifice for Frank's betterment and security, only to be told later that her efforts were for nothing and later unwanted. Conforming and the suburbs win, but at what cost?
Throughout the novel, the Wheelers interact with a rather annoying and elderly woman named Helen Givings. The Givings have a son named John, who prior to the events of the novel had been committed to a psychiatric hospital after being declared insane in court. At the time the Wheelers decide to move to Paris, the Givings ask the two if they and John can have dinner with them, the intention being to introduce John to people his own age and introduce him back into society. The Wheelers agree and immediately hit it off with John, largely due to John's excitement over them moving to Paris and his agreement with Frank that culture in the suburbs leads to mediocrity.
When April becomes pregnant, Frank announces to the Givings during another dinner that they're no longer moving to Paris on account of her condition. John is confused; babies are born in Europe all the time. He accuses Frank of becoming just like everyone else, willing to throw away their dreams for the sake of comfort. April is also spared no criticism as he accuses her of throwing away her own life and dreams to make Frank stay with her. To John, and likely to the reader, the Wheelers and the Givings are the ones who are truly insane.
"It's a disease. Nobody thinks or feels or cares anymore; nobody gets excited or believes in anything."
Revolutionary Road was first published in 1961, a good 14 years after famed real estate developer William Levitt opened the first planned subdivision that would spawn the suburbs we know today. Throughout the 1950s, the creation of these suburbs exploded as a post-war economy benefited the middle class and gave them opportunities to pursue their own land and single family homes.
This wasn't met without criticism; early critics noted that such communities lacked the same cultural diversity that you could find within the cities. Suburbs were often "redlined" by developers, blocking African American and other racial or ethnic minorities from owning homes in the same communities as white families. Everyone living in a similar, viewable house started the mentality of needing to "keep up with the Joneses," and a new level and intensity of consumerism in household goods took off. A later essay by Jennifer Price would classify the suburb as the natural habitat of the plastic pink flamingo, referring to the popular lawn decoration at the time.
Richard Yates took part of this criticism in the form of a novel that was likely way ahead of its time. The subdivision as it was first introduced has changed, but the idea of leaving the crowded city for your own space likely isn't going anywhere. It wasn't until some 6 or 7 years after the novel was first published that the counter culture movement took root and young adults began to protest their parents' "conservative" lifestyles, but these same people later grew up and moved to the suburbs as well. The 80s saw the rise of the yuppie, characterized by the constant pursuit of material wealth and McMansions.
It wasn't until Millennials and Generation Z took a more active interest in living in cities that the demographic and wealth divide between cities and suburbs started to decrease. It's these generations that can mostly be credited for revitalizing formerly decaying areas like Brooklynn, Chicago, and Detroit through gentrification. Driving to work is out; walking, riding a bike, or taking the train or bus is in. Amazon's criteria for where to put their second headquarters included the overall livability and transportation available within an urban core, as that's where their new employees would likely want to live.
Will these generations stay within urban areas as they begin to have families? Some are already starting to say no, they'll leave for the suburbs like everyone else . Will they face the same challenges and risks of losing their individuality as the Wheelers did? This is hard to say. Many urban elements have moved into the suburbs and are considerably more diverse than they originally were, but the pressure to compete with your neighbor, keep "different" neighbors out, and limit the development of land and new businesses, will likely never go away.
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