The Quiet American

Alden Pyle is a brash, confident young American who arrives in Vietnam with a naive worldview. Fowler is amused when the quiet American introduces himself, finding his academic-led perspective on Vietnam’s political situation uninformed and impractical. Furthermore, Pyle’s lack of experience in romance also intrigues the philandering Fowler. To Fowler, Pyle is incorrect about almost everything. Despite this, Pyle possesses an earnestness that makes Fowler want to protect him. Pyle fascinates Fowler because, unlike the jaded, older man, Pyle sincerely believes that the future can be a brighter, better place. Furthermore, he believes that he has the key to this optimistic future: York Harding’s theories about a Third Force in Vietnam. Pyle believes that he needs to find a third force in the conflict, a viable synthesis of the French colonists and the Viet Minh communists. For Fowler, this is absurd, but for Pyle, it is obvious. Whether he is arriving in a conflict zone in the middle of the night to tell Fowler that he is in love with Fowler’s girlfriend or conspiring with a bandit like General Thé to bring an end to a war he barely understands, Pyle possesses an infectious zeal for the world that is an antidote to Fowler’s poisonous and pervasive cynicism.

Much about Pyle’s situation hints that there is a deeper complexity to his character, however. He is a brave man, seemingly unconcerned about the immediate threat of being shot or blown up when traveling through a war zone. He possesses crucial survival skills. Furthermore, his role as an economic attaché comes with additional duties. Fowler, who has reported from war zones for many years, believes that this means that Pyle is a spy. He asks around, presuming that Pyle is a member of the Office of Strategic Services, a now-defunct branch of the American intelligence services that was a forerunner to the CIA. To Fowler, this means that Pyle is far more than just an academic; he is a glimpse into a future where the United States is the major colonizing force, replacing the French in Vietnam. His interest in General Thé and the Third Force is not altruistic. Pyle, Fowler comes to assume, is carrying out secret orders to undermine the communists in Vietnam, as per the wishes of his home country. Pyle explicitly admits to this, but his quiet demeanor and naive personality are part of his disguise, helping him remain unthreatening while carrying out secret orders.

No amount of intelligence training or York Harding textbooks could prepare Pyle for the reality of colonial violence. The bombs that explode in the civilian square are made using molds provided to General Thé by Pyle and his American employers. He is directly responsible for the very death and destruction that horrifies him. Confronted by the consequences of his actions, Pyle’s first instinct is denial, insisting that General Thé had been tricked. Later, removed from the scene, he emphasizes this denial, acting as though nothing has happened. A short time later, Heng’s communist agents kill Pyle with Fowler’s assistance. The naivety that made Pyle so shocked by the violence at the bombing is the same naivety that did not prepare him for retribution.

Fowler, a cynic, could tell that Pyle would not survive the war. Whether Fowler helped to kill Pyle because of his politics or because of his pursuit of Phuong (whom he also objectifies rather than loves) becomes irrelevant. Pyle is killed by his own naivety: the same sincere naivety that made him such a fascinating and unique figure in a war zone demonstrates how war robs people of their innocence and optimism. Men either turn jaded like Fowler or, like Pyle, they do not survive.

Phuong is one of the only Vietnamese characters to occupy a meaningful space in the narrative of The Quiet American. She is a beautiful young woman who is well aware of her beauty and the value that this gives her in a patriarchal society. In this sense, she is the perfect match for Fowler, as she has just as cynical a worldview as he does. She wants to use her beauty to improve her standing in society and realize her dreams of moving to somewhere like America. Fowler mistakes Phuong’s self-interested personality for an aspect of Vietnamese culture. As he says to Pyle, Fowler believes that Vietnamese women are simply not capable of loving in the way Western people do. Since he knows so few Vietnamese women, he projects her emotional restraint onto society as a whole. To Fowler, Phuong represents the archetypal and desirable Vietnamese woman. In actuality, Phuong represents only herself.

Phuong has her own ambitions and desires, most important among them leaving Vietnam. When she talks to Fowler and Pyle about her dreams, she often confuses England and the United States. To the men, this comic mix-up is a demonstration of her lack of intelligence. They correct her as though she were a child. In reality, the actual locations of these landmarks do not matter to her. Phuong is not interested in the Statue of Liberty for its artistic merits, and she is not interested in Cheddar Gorge due to an interest in geography. Phuong is interested in these places because they represent an escape from Vietnam. Caught in a war between competing violent ideologies, Phuong rejects the worldviews of the French colonialists and the communist Viet Minh. All she believes in is peace, comfort, and a good life. Since she does not believe that she can achieve this in her war-torn, colonized homeland, she wants to escape. As such, escape to anywhere has become her own defining ideology.

The narrative juxtaposes Phuong’s clear goals against the other characters’ tendency to reduce her to a mere trophy. To Fowler, Phuong is not a romantic partner of equal standing in their relationship. He is protective of her as he is protective of his possessions, as annoyed at Pyle for trying to steal her as he is annoyed at Pyle for his manners. This objectification stems partly from the inherently patriarchal nature of the characters’ societies (Vietnam, France, and England) and partly from the Orientalist stereotypes that Fowler and Pyle project onto her. Phuong appeals to them because of the ways she fulfills the expectations of Asian women their colonialist cultures taught them: subservient, docile, sexually available (for Fowler), and in need of rescue (for Pyle). However, Phuong also uses her objectification to her own ends. She deliberately cultivates an atmosphere of emotional distance. When Fowler tries to know her better, she changes the subject or suggests that he smoke opium. In doing so, Phuong actively defines the parameters of her social relationships. She allows Fowler to know her to the exact extent that she deems permissible and necessary to achieve her goals. In a patriarchal society, Phuong embraces her own objectified status and weaponizes it against foolish men who conceive of her only as a childlike trophy to be swapped back and forth.