Over the course of the novel, because it is told from Fowler's perspective, the reader never gains a sense of who Phuong is as a human being, only what he sees in her, and what he projects onto her image. Phuong becomes more of a metaphor for South Vietnam itself, less of a character and how Europeans saw it as exotic, vulnerable, and feminine, and how Americans saw it as ripe for the taking, in danger of being overtaken by communism, and thus in need of American democratic moral guidance and salvation. Phuong is also treated poorly by her own sister, dominated by almost every other character in the novel, which further reinforces her status as a metaphor for Vietnamese peasants who cannot articulate themselves either in the face of European and American misunderstanding and misinterpretation, or more powerful ideologues from their own people. A refusal to acknowledge to Vietnam's real, divergent needs is a common theme runs throughout the novel. Perhaps the most obvious example of American blindness is Pyle's constant insistence upon the need for a 'Third Force' (that is, the use of insurgent, illegally funded groups) to save Vietnam, because of the fact he has read it in a textbook, the Role of the West, at Harvard. Pyle still has the point-of-view of a student, not a realist. By treating the Vietnamese badly, essentially by funding terrorist groups through covert operations that support his supposedly pro-democratic ideology, Pyle is convinced he is doing the 'correct' thing, even though it causes atrocities, as evidenced during one particularly horrific bombing sequence in a crowded marketplace. Pyle's thinking, Greene implies, mirrors all terrorists who think that by taking lives, they can save lives, and also American ignorance about the complexities of life in other nations.

At first Fowler likes Pyle and does not take him seriously. But gradually he sees that Pyle is a threat to the nation's stability and also to Fowler's relationship with Phuong: "I had to tell you - I've fallen in love...

I couldn't help it. He was so unexpected and serious... He said solemnly, as though this part he had learned by heart, that he had a great love and respect for Phuong" (Greene 57; 76). Yet Fowler likewise convinces himself that he is 'doing good' by doing bad, when he helps to engineer Pyle's murder. Does he do it to help the Vietnamese people, whom he has come to love during his years as a war correspondent, or because Pyle has stolen Phuong away from him? The book suggests the latter, of course, although sometimes Fowler seems to have more affection for and insight about Vietnam than he might like to let the reader, or even himself to know. "A two-hundred-pound bomb does not discriminate. How many dead colonels justify a child's or a trishaw driver's death when you are building a national democratic front" (Greene 163). Fowler is upset by losing Phuong, of course, but he does have a clear-eyed vision of the dangers that will ensue to innocent people when Pyle channels American economic aid to the 'Third Force' he thinks will liberate the nation, but which takes children's lives, indiscriminately bombing in the name of democracy.
Pyle's actions are illegal, and the actions of the 'Third Force' are immoral, but Pyle's ideology makes him unable to see the human consequences of his actions. "York Harding might write in graphic abstractions about the Third Force, but this was what it came down to - this was it" (Greene 144). In the wake of colonialism, Green suggests, no one is morally neutral, despite Fowler's insistence upon his objectivity -- Fowler is a passionate romantic at heart, putting his personal life above everything else, and Pyle puts his ideals above the personal suffering of ordinary Vietnamese civilians. Neither representative of colonial ideology is correct, of course, because both men look at the nation they claim to love and only see their own desires.

Works Cited

Greene, Graham. The Quiet American. New York: Penguin Classics, 1973.