Revolutionary Road: Part 3, Chapter 1 Summary & Analysis

It is natural for all humans to make sense of distressing circumstances with reference to time, the narrator says. The synchronized watches of soldiers facing a bombing, the appointment calendar of the business executive who feels that his schedule is too full and so no tragedy can strike, even the ability of the old man to remember the year of his first wife’s death: these things, along with the changing of the seasons, help to create a sense of order out of chaos. Frank and April place the date of conception in the first week in May, on an occasion when her diaphragm had felt loose, and this means they have until the first week in August to decide whether April should induce an abortion in the way her old friend from acting school told her to. They mark the passage of time on a calendar hanging on the kitchen wall.

The night that Frank finds the rubber syringe, April and Frank decide that there is plenty of time to discuss what to do together. They both see the weeks leading up to the first week of the third month of her pregnancy as enough time to convince the other. Frank looks at convincing April not to have an abortion as something like a courtship or a sales campaign. He takes her out to fancy restaurants to show her how much more interesting their life can be once they have more money. When April argues that he will not be able to discover his true passion if they do not move, he says that he is not willing to let her mutilate herself for him. April says that women have abortions all the time, but he sticks to the position that abortion is a crime against her body, and eventually he sees that she is embarrassed to be advocating for something so indecent.

Frank also begins to try to show April what a strong, responsible, manly man he is. He holds himself very upright so he will look taller, clenches his jaw, and gets out of bed each morning before April wakes so that she won’t see him asleep. He feels slightly uncomfortable when he thinks about how disingenuous he is being, but he comforts himself that she also play-acted to convince him to move to Europe. Frank feels he could easily win April over if he could use this technique to influence her all day every day. But while he is at work, she is stuck in the boring world of their home. Meanwhile, Helen Givings continually drops by, pretending to want to talk about the sale of their house, which they have not yet called off, but actually intending to schedule more visits with John.

After an exhausting Saturday spent with the Campbells, Frank’s attempts to convince April enter a new phase. April says that Frank is a much more moral person than she is, but he replies that this has nothing to do with morality, or at least not conventional morality. April objects, saying that there is no kind of morality other than conventional. Frank wants to scream at her in frustration and tell her she is a snob, but he only says that she must be tired, and he knows she knows better than that. She disagrees, saying she doesn’t understand the real meaning behind many of the things he says. Frank feels disheartened: he doesn’t know how will he convince her if everything he says is just words.

Frank decides to use a method he thought of as a final resort to try to convince April. He says that her motives may not be straightforward, but instead spring from emotions about her childhood. She asks if he means that she is emotionally disturbed. He denies this, but then goes on to indirectly assert that she is. Frank suggests that rejection by her own parents may have made April reluctant to have children. April says that she has had two children, but Frank retorts that she has wanted to abort two of them. April says that she can’t help what she feels, even if it is somehow the result of her childhood. Speaking very gently, Frank says that they ought to bring her to a psychoanalyst. April says she wants to stop talking and go to bed. Frank fears he has lost the fight.

The next day is the Sunday of John Givings’s visit. John is in an agitated state when he arrives with Helen and Howard. Frank hopes that seeing a “full-fledged mental case” will convince April that she ought to care whether she is crazy. John asks when they are leaving for Europe, saying he wants Frank’s help finding a lawyer. He pulls Frank aside, saying that he needs Frank’s help to get in touch with a lawyer who can help him determine whether he has any rights. Howard Givings slowly approaches and John yells for him not to interrupt his conversation with Frank. Helen apologizes to the Wheelers, saying they shouldn’t have come, and the Givings family departs.

After the Givings family leaves, April says that John’s childhood must have been bad with parents like the Givings, but says that Frank probably thinks he is better off than she is just because he had parents. Frank denies that he means this. Later, after a night of tense silence, April asks Frank if he sees her desire for an abortion as “sort of a denial of womanhood.” He says that he doesn’t know—only an expert could say for sure—but he remembers reading about a woman who kept trying to get rid of her pregnancies because of “an infantile penis-envy thing.” Frank continues, saying that if most little girls initially want to be boys, but get over this desire by wanting to emulate their mothers in setting up homes and having children, then it makes sense that April never felt that way, since she had no mother.

April asks how they will find a good psychiatrist, but then says it doesn’t really matter. With tears in her eyes, she says there isn’t much to more to say. Frank knows that in the remaining eleven days before the deadline she might change her mind. He decides he needs to be vigilant for these days, first letting everyone know that they are cancelling their plan to move to Europe.