Community and Revolution in Howard Fast's April Morning

Introduction: Community as Central Theme

Howard Fast tells the frantic story of one monumental day in the life of a fifteen-year-old revolutionary committeeman in his novel April Morning. Written in 1961, the work captures the strengths and weaknesses of revolutionary Americans. The ideas associated with the American dream are woven throughout the work, but the most important theme is community. Within the novel, the importance of the community and its collective fears and expectations are foundational to both the growth of the characters and the development of the narrative itself.

Many of the conflicts in the work are rooted in the expectations and norms of the community. The community collectively challenges the British troops as a loosely organized militia, protecting their own lives and lands. According to Howard Fast's April Morning, community was the thread that held together the revolution — collective mourning of losses and cooperative sharing of resources after conflict defined its spirit. Additionally, the reason and responsibility felt by those who survived the conflict were shaped by the pressures of family and community as a whole.

Family Reputation and Social Expectation

The pressure of the community left Moses — Adam and Levi's father — conflicted between his love for his family and his respectability among his neighbors. Moses refrained from emotional attachment to his children because he felt it would make them appear weak in the eyes of the community. His piety built walls between his children and their curiosity and creativity. As Adam recalls:

"When I drew the water from the well, I said the spell to take the curse off water, 'Holly ghost and holy hell, get thee out of the mossy well.' My father once heard me say that spell, and he took me into the barn and gave me seven with the birch rod. He hated spells and said they were worse than an instrument of the devil; they were the instrument of ignorance." (9)

The family held an important position in the community, a position with a long history of piety and righteousness. The world that Adam rebelled against caused a great deal of internal conflict for Adam, his father, and the whole family.

"Don't ever talk most to me, Adam. Most folks are not Coopers, and most folks do not live in this village or in this county either. Most folks are not dissenters, and most folks would just as soon find a chain to put around their necks, considering one wasn't there already. Coopers have been teachers and pastors and free yeoman farmers and ship captains and merchants for a hundred and fifty years on this soil, and I don't recall one of them who couldn't write a sermon and deliver it too, if the need ever arose." "Well, maybe you're leaning on the first one, Granny," I said. (14–15)

Even the person with the clearest sense of who Adam is and who he is trying to become — his Granny — demonstrates with the above statement that she still expects him to toe the line, regardless of his feelings about God, faith, or community. The messages of Moses, rooted in concern about how the community might perceive his children if they did not conduct themselves properly, run throughout the work and throughout his relationships with his sons.

"We have always prided ourselves that we are, in a sense, people of the book. My brothers and I were raised, and I make every effort to raise my own children, not as blackguards and loafers, not as soldiers or tavern sots, but as thoughtful and reasoning creatures, men who honor the written word, who respect intelligent writing, and who, like the ancient philosophers, look upon argumentation and disputation as avenues toward the deepest truth...Nor are my neighbors unlike me." (21)

Collective Action and Revolutionary Organization

Moses's conflicts with his son are those of a man who expects the actions and thoughts of a grown adult from a fifteen-year-old. He expects his children to represent him and his family in the community, and he will settle for nothing less, even if he must beat obedience and compliance into them.

The community collected together the ideals and standards of the region, yet it also pooled the resources necessary for a revolution. Members created inventories of their weapons, food, and other supplies. At this crucial stage, everyone knew what others had to contribute to the cause, and for the most part it appears that few held back. At the committeemen's meeting, the inventory was read aloud: "Samuel Hodley took the floor again and gave the results of the weapons count for the village and surrounding area...Hodley wanted a central shot and powder depot organized in the village..." (30–31)

This revolutionary organizing at the local level illustrates Fast's broader argument that the American Revolution was sustained not by grand generals alone, but by the disciplined cooperation of ordinary community members who understood their collective stake in the outcome.

Just after the first muster of the day on the commons — which had ended with the deaths of several important community members, not least of whom was Adam's father — Adam sat cowering in hiding, sobbing deeply. "I sat there and cried. I hadn't cried so much since I was a small boy, very small, because a boy gets over crying early in a town like ours." (98) He was reconsidering the civility of his own community and how its members had believed they could change the minds of the British forces. The village was attacked with fury and ferocity, almost as if its people were meant to serve as an example; they did not return fire but ran instead for cover.