The Evils Of Human Motivation

The Evils of Human Motivation

Graham Greene’s The Quiet American is set in Saigon, Vietnam in the early 1950’s during the end of the First Indochina War. It portrays two simultaneous conflicts: one regarding the political turmoil of the growing American involvement that led to the Vietnam War, and also the romantic triangle between the Fowler, Pyle and Phuong. Each main character is involved in the war on their own levels. Fowler is involved mostly as an observer, while Pyle is more directly more involved on a number of levels with the American government. Phoung is just a native of her country Vietnam to bring the two together. Greene draws parallels between Pyle’s conduct and America’s overall policies in Vietnam, connecting all his characters to be involved in the war in someway.

The setting of Vietnam during the French war is one of the most essential aspects of The Quiet American. Greene does an excellent job of describing Vietnam not only as a physical country but also as a culture. In many ways, the setting is what makes the story transpire. In around 1945, things began to fall apart in Saigon. British troops were looked at to be much more understanding than Americans (Jamieson 197).So by creating a character from Britain was a perfect option for Greene to show someone as an observer in the war. He created Powel, a British journalist in his late middle age, whom lived in Vietnam for a number of years. “My fellow journalists called themselves correspondents; I preferred the title of reporter. I wrote what I saw. I took no action-even an opinion is a kind of action” (Greene 22). This shows he prides himself on having no opinions and not taking sides, but instead he believes himself to be a true journalist who only observes. Nothing can get to him, or so he thinks.

In many ways, however, Fowler is not a disconnected observer but a hypercritical pessimist. He has an active death wish.

“We are fools, I said, when we love. I was terrified

of loosing her. I thought I saw her changing-I don’t

know if she really was, but I couldn’t bear the

uncertainty any longer. I ran towards the finish just

like a coward runs towards the enemy and wins a

medal. I wanted to get death over”(Greene 111).

Fowler is always remarking that he wants to die, no matter what the problem is in his life. Here Greene makes an excellent reference to the war relating to Fowler’s death wishes. However, he continues to want to fight for Phuong and can't stand the notion that she might marry Pyle. He hates Pyle's attitudes towards the situation. Given the choice between writing a great news story that would advance his career or staying in Vietnam with his lover, he chooses to stay with Phoung. His personal life is more essential than war and politics. He takes pride in his apathy and short views. He does not want to be an editor but an bystander.

On the other hand there is Pyle, who is completely contrary to Fowler. Pyle is the "quiet American" of the title. He is the opposite of a stereotypical American abroad that one might imagine. He is not on a vacation being obnoxious, snapping away pictures of his visit. Instead Pyle is sympathetic, intellectual, and quite serious; he thinks that he can save the world. He comes from a prestigious East Coast background. Pyle is a graduate of Harvard University; he has studied theories of government and society, and is faithful to a scholar named York Harding. He has read Harding's numerous books many times and has engaged Harding's thinking as his own.

The irony of Pyle’s character is that he is a fraud. Although he seems completely honest and open, in actuality he works as a secret agent for the American intelligence agency. His identity as a compassionate agent with the Economic Mission is only a cover. Pyle is naÐ"Їve and innocent about what is really going on. For example, after a terrible bombing kills many civilians, he walks around the blood and devastation but is unaffected. He remains in his hypothetical world where everything he does is good and okay because it comes from the highest motives for humankind. In the end his youthful innocence leads to his murder.

When Pyle enters Fowler's life, everything changes. Pyle wants to take away Phuong, which forces Fowler to ask his own wife for a divorce in order to keep her. Fowler has been lazy about his work; Pyle forces him to scrutinize things he has been disregarding. Even after Pyle saves Fowler's life, he dislikes Pyle even more and comes to believe that Pyle is a menace to the Vietnamese people.

Fowler is left alone when Phuong moves in with Pyle. He actually does some investigative reporting. The soldiers he follows who are fighting in the war challenge Fowler to take sides. Greene is trying to get across to the reader that war is a moral issue and you are not a human being unless you take a side in it. Taking sides is emotional, but having emotions is part of being human. Fowler realizes that Pyle and his way of thinking is hazardous to the country which Fowler has adopted and come to love, a country that Pyle does not comprehend at all. This change of heart sets up Fowler to participate in Pyle's murder. His character undergoes a noticeable change in the course of the novel.

Phoung, only twenty years old, is considered the most beautiful woman in Saigon.

Phuong enjoys reading books about the royal family and takes little interest in politics or the war. She has no clue that Hitler exists, which shows her innocence even more. Greene depicts her as a child without any power or opinions of her own. She never has a real conversation with either man.

In many ways, the way Greene depicts her is to show a parallel of the people of Vietnam. She is only written in terms of what the two men want from her. Pyle wants her to become a typical American housewife with children. Fowler wants her to remain just as she is: his servant. This can be taken as what the French and the Americans want out of the country of Vietnam. Neither country has the same ideas, and proceeds to only care about their own interests. Just like neither man ever bothers to find out much about Phoung, the French and the Americans have no care to find out about the culture while destroying Veitnam. In other words, just like Phoung, they have no voice in their own country either.

Fowler and Pyle would have behaved in a different way