Was April trying to commit suicide?

Question

At the end of Revolutionary Road, April makes the decision to terminate her pregnancy on her own at home. She knows that this is dangerous and that her husband vehemently disapproved of her doing this after he discovered the apparatus that she was intending to use.

The morning that she did this, she was almost in a zombie like state during breakfast with her husband and even called to make arrangements for her 2 children (who were staying with friends that morning) to stay longer per her phone conversation:

I'm not feeling any better. That's really why I called. If its not an inconvenience for you... No. Not if they're outdoors playing. Don't call them in. Just...give them each a kiss for me, and tell them I...tell them...Oh, you know

When Frank (her husband) is in the waiting room in the hospital, he tells his friend that she did it to herself:

She did it to herself, Shep. She did it to herself.

It seemed that April completely lost hope of everything when Frank decided against their plans to move to Paris. She didn't care about anything. It seemed as though she almost wanted to punish Frank.

Was April trying to kill herself by terminating her pregnancy at home like this?

What makes me question her motives, is that she calls for help when she starts bleeding after she terminates her pregnancy.

Was she honestly just trying to terminate her pregnancy and it just turned into a horrible accident?

Answer 1

The question is to know whether April was consciously, purposefully seeking for her at-home abortion to result in her dying soon afterwards.

This is a very difficult question to answer because one could argue that even April would not have known exactly how this procedure she gave to herself, would affect her. So, even if she was trying to commit suicide, she herself is aware that there is a decent chance that her wish will not hold water.

I think that this unanswered question about her true motive lurking in our minds, might have been intentional, as throughout the film she is portrayed as a very hesitant, unsure, and foggy-minded woman whom we are hoping will -at least- begin to clearly see the beauty in her cute marriage to Frank. So her attempt at a suicide having as fuzzy and cloudy an intention (coincidentally seeking immediate help) as her own mindset, would make sense to me as a viewer.

I think she felt that it would be a "win" for her either way, which is why I believe she was not firmly aiming to necessarily die. She convinces herself that her life is hopelessly empty, so resulting in death would satisfy her one way. Yet, an abortion in which she survives, would be her way out of her immediate, perceived caged life which she cannot bear at Revolutionary Road, in contrast to her dreams of a new Parisian lifestyle.

If her intent was firm on dying, she would have paired the procedure with alcohol or a household toxic chemical to reassure herself that her tragic goal is met, at any cost.

---

extra notes:

Though it hasn't been explicitly mentioned in either the film or the book, it is assumed that April sadly has an untimely death as a result of this self-terminated pregnancy.

Frank tells Shep frantically in the hospital that "[they] said she was unconscious in the ambulance before getting to the hospital..."

Also, Frank's hopeless despondent nature, which could easily render an audience to sympathize with him and feel compassion/pity for him, when he leaves April's hospital room to see Shep in the waiting room, as if to inform him of her medical state, conveys that he is completely at a loss for any words and cannot even bring himself to communicate his sheer sadness.

The next scene, he goes off running, as if to run from the blasphemous misery he may perceive at this point April has surprised him with, which he can no longer bear to withstand or even comprehend (and most notably does not want to even care to figure out any longer).

Sources, Revolutionary Road film:

https://www.youtube.comw/atch?v=isdeLNeyZws https://www.theguardian.com/books/2004/oct/09/featuresreviews.guardianreview23

- dissection/symbolism

members feel free to edit, if necessary, as I am still new.