An Existentialist Reading Of Revolutionary Road

Since World War II, the western world has developed rapidly in materialcivilization, while there are crises lurking in people’s spiritual life. World War II, theCold War and McCarthy’s times made many Americans perplexed at their life and thefuture. Against the absurd world, Richard Yates produced the novel RevolutionaryRoad, a novel which exposes and satirizes the contemporary American society.This thesis is a tentative study of Revolutionary Road. The novel will beinterpreted based on Camus’ idea of absurdity and Sartre’s concepts of “the other”and “free choices”. In a world prevailed with absurdity, people hope that their life ismeaningful and valuable but the reality is full of conformity, whereby absurdity arises.Camus advocates that people should realize the absurdity in their life and resist it. InSartre’s eyes, though in an absurd world, human beings are condemned to be free.One’s freedom can not be separated from concrete situations while “the other” is themost important situation. Under the influence of “the other”, the “being-for-itself” ofthe individual is changed into an object in the other’s subjective world.“Hell is theother.” Whatever the individual does, thinks or feels is shaped by the gaze of theothers. Luckily still, man enjoys the freedom of making choices. As Sartre puts it,“Existence precedes Essence”. We are like white sheets when we were born into theworld. By making choices, we make ourselves different from the others.The Novel Revolutionary Road is the story of a couple who are in struggle withthe absurd world. In Revolutionary Road, the author Richard Yates constructs suchreality: most people tend to be conservative in the postwar time. What they werereally concerned about was their material life: a stable job and a sweet house in thesuburban community. The protagonist Frank Wheeler knows that his life is loadedwith such absurdity that he feels too weak to change it and follow the fate.Frank Wheeler tries to act rebelliously at first, but his self-observation ofhegemonic masculinity finally results in his being the object of the other. AprilWheeler, on the other hand, always has a clear self-assertion. She denies the influence of the other and attempts to keep her own personality. Frank chooses not to chooseand follow the social rules while April tries to define herself in a new way. No matterwhat choices they make, what matters is their freedom to make choice. Frank’sconformity to social disciplines leads him to go down “the middle road” as otherswhile April is conscious of her existing state and tries to surpass the present. Bymaking a choice of her own, she feels happy as Sisyphus. Somewhat like the Beats,April rebelled against the traditional values and seeks a different life.April experiences the absurd world, denies the influence of the other and makesfree choices, by which she makes herself different. The novel makes sense to modernreaders who are also perplexed in a similar absurd society.