Trap Of Freedom:A Study Of Revolutionary Road From The Perspective Of Fromm’s Freedom Theory

Richard Yates,who has been neglected for a long time,is one of the greatest writers of the 20 th century in American literature.Among his unique thought-provoking works featured by time significance,Revolutionary Road,his maiden work as well as the most classic one,was nominated National Book Award in 1961 and also brought Yates back to the public based on its award-winning movie version.Revolutionary Road not only portrays the pessimistic and fatalistic world outlook of naturalists ruthlessly,but exposes the survival and selection dilemma faced by human beings in modern society.Characters were increasingly eager for independence and freedom,yet,they were also forced to face the misfortune of losing freedom in the eddy of loneliness and frustration.The freedom theory proposed by social psychologist Erich Fromm,who was contemporary to Yates,studies and reflects the freedom predicament of their era.Fromm indicates that people in modern society are tended to be caught in the trap of negative freedom in the process of pursuing freedom,leading to the separation from the positive freedom authentically.Most of current research focuses on the narrative techniques,feminism and modernism,serving as the analysis of characters and theme,while this thesis provides a new approach to Revolutionary Road with Fromm’s freedom theory for analyzing the factors of tragedy and the theoretical methods to tackle with the freedom dilemma.This thesis is composed of five chapters.The part of introduction briefly introduces the writer and his work Revolutionary Road,accompanied by describing the relevant theory,significance and structure of the thesis.Chapter One analyzes the research on Richard Yates and Revolutionary Road at home and abroad,meanwhile,it gives an overview of Fromm’s freedom theory,laying the foundation for analysis theoretically.Chapter Two discusses the process of characters’ getting into the trap of freedom,bearing great pain in the influence of negative freedom.Chapter Three studies the reasons from the perspective of Fromm’s freedom theory for characters in Revolutionary Road being trapped in the negative freedom,for which protagonists are induced to seek because of society,culture and family.Chapter Four expounds the differentways adopted by characters to settle the freedom predicament.Protagonists adopt mental escape mechanism to relieve from the suffering of negative freedom,though,ended by losing their freedoms similarly to further discover the truth that positive freedom is in need of love and creative activities.In conclusion,this thesis summarizes the analysis of freedom trap reflected in Revolutionary Road.In effect,the freedom pursued by the characters in Revolutionary Road is negative freedom under the trap of freedom,however,only the pursuit of positive freedom can avoid the tragedy.