Richard Yates’ Revolutionary Road depicts how prominent identity is in modern literature in the second half of the twentieth century, the search for identity through gender roles, race roles and sexuality. The emptiness of modern life in the level is quite similar to book the Handmaids tale, Atwood uses the fact if a single vital part of a women body is taken away that they will have to rely on the mind as a key to a fulfilling life questioning individuality as a whole.
Franks self-awareness is exposed behind the first paragraph and the similar tone throughout the extract. The tone suggests to the reader that Frank is sure of himself, “this whole country’s rotten with sentimentality”. Purely from this short …show more content…
When Frank mentions war as a reader you really get the sense of emptiness in modern life, Frank uses the war to describe a point in life where he was the happiest and felt the most fulfilled. Throughout the extract you get the sense as a reader that Frank finds it hard to fit in and to conform, but during the war this was not the case, he used the war as a method to conform and a chance to finally be one with something. You understand this as this this the first time in the extract where Frank mentions a relationship that means something, this is almost three quarters int he the extract. “And all the helmets and overcoats and rifles, and the way the guys were walking”. Not only does the quote suggest Franks sudden happiness in a relationship but his passion for violence. Leading on to how April responds to Franks point, April compares Franks passion for violence in the war to the first time they made love, “The first time you made love to me”. This quote is very ambiguous, April not only compares the first time they made love to one of the most violet acts in the world, war. Which only amplifies the dominance Frank has over her, but that the act of ‘making love’ between them was very violent and not a loving act. The quote also suggests that women weren’t something until they had a man in their life, Frank had not properly found himself until he went to war, he was happiest and the most fulfilled, suggesting that women had no meaning until they had been ‘taken’ by their husbands clearly exemplifying the role of women in society at the