Revolutionary Road (1961) (edit title/settings)

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Characters/People edit see section history

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• Frank Wheeler: Married to April Wheeler. An intellectual caught in a dead-end job. . .but what does he want from life?
• April Wheeler: Married to Frank Wheeler.
• Howard Givings: Retired and married to Mrs Givings.
• John Givings: Son of Mr and Mrs Givings
• Milly Campbell: Wife of Shep Campbell, clumsy, with a tendency to sweat. Devoted to Shep.
• Maureen Grube: An administration assistant at Knox, where Frank Wheeler works.
• Bart Pollock: Frank Wheeler's boss.
• Bandy: Frank Wheeler's boss at Knox
• Knox: Add a description of this character.
• Greenacres
• Shep Campbell: Milly's Husband
• Jennifer: Daughter of Frank and April Wheeler, has a tendency to suck her thumb when in thought.
• Michael: Son of Frank and April Wheeler
• Helen: Helen Givings, the real estate agent who sold the Wheelers their house as well as a friend to the Wheelers
• Norma
• Jack Ordway: Frank's co-worker, a perpetual alcoholic
• Claire
• Mrs. Jorgensen
• Steve Kovick
• Franklin

Quotes edit see section history

• “It’s a disease. Nobody thinks or feels or care any more; nobody gets excited or believe in anything except their own comfortable little God damn mediocrity.”

• “...You found you were saying yes when you meant no, and “We’ve got to be together in this thing” when you meant the very opposite; ... then you were face to face, in total darkness, with the knowledge that you didn’t know who you were. And how could anyone else be blamed for that?”

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• Wasn’t it true, then, that everything in his life from that point on had been a succession of things he hadn’t really wanted to do?

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• Intelligent, thinking people could take things like this in their stride, just as they took the larger absurdities of deadly dull jobs in the city and deadly dull homes in the suburbs. Economic circumstance might force you to live in this environment, but the important thing was to keep from being contaminated. The important thing, always, was to remember who you were.

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• Proving, proving; and for no other reason than that he was married to a woman who had somehow managed to put him forever on the defensive, who loved him when he was nice, who lived according to what she happened to feel like doing and who might at any time—this was the hell of it—who might at any time of day or night just happen to feel like leaving him. It was as ludicrous and as simple as that.

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• that if you wanted to do something absolutely honest, something true, it always turned out to be a thing that had to be done alone.

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• That’s how we both got committed to this enormous delusion—because that’s what it is, an enormous, obscene delusion—this idea that people have to resign from real life and ‘settle down’ when they have families. It’s the great sentimental lie of the suburbs,

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• It’s a disease. Nobody thinks or feels or cares any more; nobody gets excited or believes in anything except their own comfortable little God damn mediocrity.”

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• He could even be grateful in a sense that he had no particular area of interest: in avoiding specific goals he had avoided specific limitations. For the time being the world, life itself, could be his chosen field.

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• OUR ABILITY TO MEASURE and apportion time affords an almost endless source of comfort.

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• Then the fight went out of control. It quivered their arms and legs and wrenched their faces into shapes of hatred, it urged them harder and deeper into each other’s weakest points, showing them cunning ways around each other’s strongholds and quick chances to switch tactics, feint, and strike again. In the space of a gasp for breath it sent their memories racing back over the years for old weapons to rip the scabs off old wounds; it went on and on.

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• The whole point of crying was to quit before you cornied it up. The whole point of grief itself was to cut it out while it was still honest, while it still meant something. Because the thing was so easily corrupted: let yourself go and you started embellishing your own sobs, or you started telling about the Wheelers with a sad, sentimental smile and saying Frank was courageous, and then what the hell did you have?

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Setting & Locations edit see section history

• New York
• Bethune Street
• Revolutionary Road
• Stamford
• Rye

First Sentence edit see section history

Series & Lists edit see section history

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Richard Yates (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: 61-5740
• Dewey: 813.54

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Literature & Fiction › Contemporary
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Literary

Movie Connections edit see section history

• Revolutionary Road (IMDb): A young couple (Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet) living in a Connecticut suburb during the mid-1950s struggle to come to terms with their personal problems while trying to raise their two children. Based on a novel by Richard Yates

More Books Like This edit see section history