Painfully Alive

Yates gives Frank and April a mindset that isolates them from the others in Revolutionary Hill Estate. They both feel as if they do not belong, that they are ‘painfully alive in a drugged and dying culture’ (pt I, ch IV). The metaphor ‘painfully alive’ gives the impression that Frank and April are portrayed as enduring the suburbs as they feel like they know the truth about living there, creating the effect of feeling trapped. From the interactions between the Campbell’s and the Wheeler’s, it can be inferred that the Wheeler’s think of themselves as superior and more intellectual. This is shown through the physicality of April as she is described to have ‘the look of a cordial spectator more than a guest’ (pt II, ch II), suggesting that she does not feel comfortable in the Campbell's’ house and the
diction of ‘spectator’ highlights that she seems to have the role of an onlooker or a bystander rather than a friend. Yates portrays the Wheeler’s as priding themselves on having a better understanding on what kind of society they are living in, one that is ‘a disease’ and has everyone ‘comfortable’ with it’s ‘mediocrity’.
The diction and plosive consonants used in ‘disease’ also reinforce the phrase ‘drugged and dying culture’ conveying that Frank and April blame the influences of society as these words have connotations of decay, suggesting that having the principle of molding to be how society wants you to be, has damaging effects. Yates makes it seem that they want to escape their life but it is the ideals and the people around them, that prevent them from doing so. This is a little incongruous considering the end of the novel, as neither of them manage to escape the suburbian life. Yates writes that the ‘Wheelers may have thought the suburbs were to blame for all their problems, but I meant it to be implicit in the text that that was their delusion, their problem, not mine.’ Yates provides a conclusive perspective, believing that the suburbs were not to blame, rather it was the reactions of his characters that lead to the the tragedy and the escape to Paris that was
unachievable. Here, Yates challenges what readers may have thought to be the fault of the society they lived in, by turning the responsibility towards the actions of his characters, signifying that it is because of their own reasons that they are isolated in their choices.