The American Dream
April and Frank yearn for the American dream. April longs to be an actress. She can see her name in lights and wants to make it in the big time. Frank has dreams too but ends up a salesman for a machinery company. In the end, the dream is what divides them; April wants to keep seeking her emotional nirvana, and find what is going to make her happy and successful. She is not willing to give up on her dreams. Frank, though, lacks the courage to hold on to the dream and ultimately settles; he receives a promotion, which is always a good thing, but it is not what he dreamed of.
Loneliness
Marilyn Monroe once asked a reporter if he had ever walked into a room, known nobody, and felt lonely. The reporter replied that of course he had. Hadn't everyone? Monroe told him to multiply that by fifty rooms. Then he might understand the depth of her loneliness.
This would also sum up the loneliness felt by both Frank and April, although both express it in extremely different ways. They seem like a perfect match; they are companionable, with each other more than they are away from each other, surrounded by neighbors they get along with and friends they like very much. Yet they are both incredibly lonely because they do not felt understood. They cannot communicate with each other. Frank's only form of communication is yelling; April's is introversion. She feels unheard; he feels hated. Both feel lonely because they feel that nobody understands how they feel.
Abuse
Frank is an abusive man with a very bad temper. He goads April when it is obvious that she is at her lowest emotional point. He is not a man who knows how to process his own emotions, expressing them in rage, and hateful words. Instead of asking his wife what she wants, he yells at her for not wanting what he wants. He is also very domineering; although they both work and are essentially married partners, he continually calls their home his. It is always "my house" not "our house" when he is talking to her, which automatically puts her down, and puts her in her place at the same time. Even given the times - women had far fewer domestic rights in the nineteen fifties - he is constantly putting her down and overruling her. He torments her to such an extent that she tries to perform a home abortion, which ultimately kills her.
Female Stereotyping
April never wanted to have children and says that they had their second child only to prove that having their first child was not a mistake. She never wanted the white picket fence, suburban lifestyle and salesman husband. They all sort of happened because that is what society told women at the time that they wanted. She hates being "just like everybody else". April wants to be an actress, to be fulfilled, to have a life that she participates in and not a life that happens around her. She is suffering in a way from being a woman before her time; she is not someone who fits neatly into a cookie cutter existence; unfortunately, at the time in which the movie is set, women were required to fit into that mold, and told that this is what they actually wanted. What she actually wants and what she is told that she wants are two wildly divergent things; this is why April finds it so difficult to exists as a suburban wife.
