Revolutionary Road: Part 1, Chapter 7 Summary & Analysis

On Frank’s birthday, after the children are asleep, Frank sits with April in the living room. She continues to apologize to him. She says that she has thought all day and has come up with a wonderful plan for their future. Frank feels guilty and wants to stop her from apologizing, so he begins to kiss her. April says that they should go into the bedroom, and he says he will shower first. In the hot water of the shower, he plans to tell her about Maureen, but then he turns off the hot water, as he used to in the army. The cold shower invigorates him, and he decides it would be stupid to tell April. He gets in bed and they make love. Frank wants to fall asleep, but April wakes him, saying she must tell him about her plan.

April pours herself and Frank some brandy and he listens to the beautiful sound of her voice, only with some reluctance beginning to pay attention to what she is saying. April’s plan is for them to move to Europe in the fall. She says that once they sell their car and house, they will enough money to live there until they become self-supporting again. She says that she will get a job as a secretary there, so that Frank can spend time figuring out what he really wants to do with his life. Frank laughs, but she says she is serious: in Europe, he can find himself the way he was supposed to seven years before, when she got pregnant unexpectedly and he got a job at Knox to support them. Frank hopes that by laughing he can get April to forget the idea, which frightens him.

Frank says that her plan is not very realistic, but April counters that living in a place where they are miserable is what is truly unrealistic. She says it is all her fault that they are living this life because of her threat to abort Jennifer. She makes it sound like it was because he convinced her to keep the baby that he had to give up his dreams. She continues, saying that the idea that parents must give up their lives and live in the suburbs is a fallacy that she has forced Frank to live by. Frank can imagine that April has been rushing around all day, anxiously thinking about her plan and preparing for his birthday dinner. April says that ever since joining the Laurel Players she has been pretending that he dragged her away from an acting career, although she knows she never had any real talent. She says that she ruined Frank’s life, but she has been pretending that he ruined hers.

Frank asks to talk, and April sits back to listen, sipping her brandy in bed. Frank says she is being too hard on herself. In the same way that she may have never been meant to be an actress, he suggests that perhaps he never had an exciting career in his future. She retorts that everyone could see he was exceptional, but Frank uncomfortably senses that it might be possible to convince her that he never really was. He changes tack, beginning to talk in the heroic, theatrical voice that she has adopted. April thrills him when she says he is the most valuable thing in the world—a man. He agrees that they will move to Paris. April says she will get right to work planning it the next day, and they fall asleep peacefully.