Revolutionary Road

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

April Wheeler: You don't! Because you've never tried at anything. And if you don't try at anything you can't fail.
Frank Wheeler: What the hell do you mean I don't try? I support you, don't I? I pay for this house. I work ten hours a day at a job I can't stand.
April Wheeler: You don't have to.
Frank Wheeler: Bullshit! I'm not happy about it. But I have the backbone not to run away from my responsibilities!
April Wheeler: It takes backbone to lead the life you want, Frank.

Once upon a time, two clean-cut American kids named Frank and April met, fell in love, and got married. They settled down in a Connecticut suburb near New York on Revolutionary Road and all lived happily ever after, right?

Wrong.

Years later, Frank Wheeler is an office drone and April is a housewife who tends to their two kids. They hate every minute of it. Things change when April suggests moving to Paris and start their existence anew. Their neighbors wonder why the hell they aren't happy with their lives. But then, Frank decides to take a promotion at work and April gets pregnant again. Let's just say things go downhill from here.

What I've described is the plot of the novel Revolutionary Road, which was published on New Years Eve, 1961, and authored by Richard Yates. The "present" of the novel is the year 1955. In 2008, Sam Mendes directed the film version which starred his then-wife, Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio.


Tropes used in Revolutionary Road include: