The Quiet American

The Quiet American depicts French colonial forces and European colonists fighting a terminal battle against their own decline. The novel is set toward the end of French colonial control of Vietnam. A war is raging between the French colonial forces and the Viet Minh, a faction of Vietnamese communists who are fighting for independence. In the aftermath of two World Wars, the French colonists in Vietnam are facing the reality of a fading empire and a period of decline. During this era, France began to lose many of its colonial outposts. France sent troops from other colonies such as Morocco and Senegal to police the Vietnamese. That tactical decision uprooted colonial subjects from one corner of the empire and sent them to enact violence at the other end. The Quiet American shows that French colonialism is unsustainable. The old hotels and bars are crumbling, symbols of the colonial culture that have been imposed on the people of Vietnam for the French state’s profit. Amid this, Thomas Fowler operates as a self-declared neutral, yet he is English, a citizen of a once-huge empire that is facing a decline like France. Fowler, even though he insists that he takes no sides, is European and, therefore, a representative of European colonialism. He, like the empires of Europe, is a fading force.

Greene contrasts the fading European empires with two newer, more radical political paths: the Viet Minh and the Americans. The communist forces of the Viet Minh are winning the battle for independence against the French, but the threat of American interference, represented by Alden Pyle, looms on the horizon. The rise of the United States in the aftermath of the World Wars presents a new problem to Vietnam and other colonized countries struggling to shrug off the yoke of European colonialism. Communism, a rallying ideology for the Vietnamese that imbues them with the strength and optimism to fight against the French, is antithetical to the Americans. Men like Pyle are sent to countries like Vietnam to police the emergence of the post-colonial world in which the United States is a global superpower. The old European empires are crumbling, but the United States is seeking to establish a similarly controlling, similarly extractive relationship. Still a young country in contrast to Britain and France, however, the United States offers only naive, academic theories such as the Third Force. The new American colonialism is a contrast to the old colonialism, but it offers little to the Vietnamese. Both old and new forms of imperialism stand in the way of Vietnamese self-determination.

The colonialist characters in the novel see the Vietnamese through the lens of Orientalism. Orientalism is a scholarly and cultural framework that emerged in the 18th and 19th centuries, primarily in the Western world. It involves the study, representation, and often misrepresentation of the cultures, peoples, and societies of the Middle East, Asia, and North Africa by Western scholars, artists, and writers. Orientalism often perpetuates stereotypes, exoticizes the “East,” and reinforces power imbalances between the “Orient” and the West. It has been criticized for its role in justifying colonialism, imperialism, and cultural superiority. Fowler and Pyle both exhibit Orientalist tendencies, viewing Vietnamese people as physically and culturally incapable of the same emotions and intelligence as Western people. They believe Vietnamese people need to be led or governed, rather than determine their futures. The Orientalism of the old and new colonialist figures illustrates that, no matter which empire rules, power imbalance and exploitation remain.