Religious Aspects of the Quiet

Religious Aspects of the Quiet American

Graham Greene published "The Quiet American" in 1955, before the United States was officially involved in the struggle in Vietnam. The book is set in 1952, and it shows Vietnam when the country was still under French rule. Fowler is an English war reporter working in Saigon and reporting on the French forces move out of Vietnam and fighting the Vietminh (Communist) army. He meets Pyle (the quiet American), who is a Foreign Service agent, and they become friends as they discover more about the people of the country and the war itself. Pyle decides that he wants to marry Phuong, the prostitute, and then Fowler has to find a way to get rid of him, because now he is a threat to Fowler's own relationship with the girl. Some critics say this novel was not as religious as Greene's previous novels, but "The Quiet American" has many religious aspects that come through in the discussions of Pyle and Fowler.

These two men meet each other all at once and become friends because they like each other and because they are both foreign in a different land. They kind of stick together. The book is Fowler's thoughts about the friendship after Pyle turns up dead, so the book is kind of a look back at how events happened and what they meant that someone sees after things happen. He talks about the war, and how he met Phuong and Pyle and how he lives. It seems like a boring life but he does not want to go home, so he stays there and writes stories about the war. Some of them he makes up so he is not honest or a good reporter. He is a liar but he does not lie to himself. He likes Pyle but hates him too because he takes Phuong away from him. Fowler is bitter and that may be one reason that he is so sarcastic about God throughout the book. He sees other people taking solace in their religious beliefs, and wishes he could do that but he cannot. That may be one reason he is so sad.

Fowler is the opposite of Pyle so it is funny that they become friends. Fowler is older, married, and very fed-up about everything around him. He smokes opium and does not believe in God, or in the United States. Basically he is unhappy and does not appreciate things more in life. He is jealous because Pyle is young and not unhappy, and has won his girl, too. So, Fowler is negative, Pyle is positive. Pyle believes in God and Fowler does not. Pyle is idealistic and he annoys Fowler. They are different people, but the author makes them friends on purpose to show their differences, and so the reader will see two different types of characters that represent two things. It is good for the reader to see this early. One of the things that makes them different is how they feel about God and religion. Pyle says he believes in God and he feels sorry for Fowler because he does not. But Fowler "wins" in the end so it seems that Pyle's faith did not help him very much.

Fowler writes for a newspaper, and he talks a lot about what the writers do in Vietnam, and how they write about what is happening. He is sarcastic and seems tired of every thing. Every thing to Pyle is new, and he is excited - he makes Fowler tired and feel old. They talk about everything from books to religion, and they do not agree on much. See, Fowler liked it when Pyle asked him for advice about Vietnam, but he did not like it when Pyle learned more than he did, and did not ask any more questions. He likes to be in charge and know more than everybody around him. He also makes people think he does not care about anybody or anything. He says, "I'm not involved. Not involved,' I repeated. It had been an article of my creed" (Greene 28). See, he does not want anyone to know that he cares about them or anything. He thinks that makes him strong but it makes him weak because he cannot tell people he cares, even when he does. He may not be emotional but he is more moral than Pyle and he sees that what Pyle is doing in Vietnam is just wrong and hurting the people. He is not against it because of his religious beliefs, he just knows in his mind that what is happening is wrong and that if Pyle is not stopped, more innocent people will die.

In Vietnam, there were many people fighting with each other. Vietnam still belonged to the French, and they were fighting the Vietminh from North Vietnam who wanted to make the country Communist. This was way before the Americans got "involved" in the Vietnam War, but they were sending guys like Pyle, who were undercover, to see what was going on over there. When Fowler goes out into the jungle he sees atrocities and things that he cannot even write about. Sometimes Fowler uses friendships and influence to visit places he is not supposed to see, and it seems like Pyle always shows up there somehow, as if he was following Fowler. Afterward, Fowler understands that Pyle is trying to start up a new "Third Party" kind of group that will throw off both Communism and French imperialism. He knows it is a stupid cause, and that came true when America, who was doing the same thing as Pyle, withdrew out of the country in 1975, and the country went Communist anyway. One critic said,

Alden Pyle, a seemingly innocent and well-intentioned diplomat whose attempt to promote U.S. interests via a "Third Force" between colonialism and communism led to the deaths of fifty civilians. Viewing Pyle as a representative American and his actions as characteristic of American foreign policy, many reviewers took Greene to task for his malign depiction of U.S. behavior in Indochina (Neilson 56).

The book was controversial, but so was what Pyle did. Pyle's resistance did not work, and he did not really understand the Vietnamese people and what they wanted. At least Fowler did. He understood Phuong, and that she would be unhappy with him in London. He understood the people and he saw that what Pyle was doing was wrong in so many ways. Fowler hated Americans and it is easy to see why in this novel. He had been in Vietnam for quite a while and had come to understand the people and what they wanted. Pyle had only read some books and studied at Harvard in the United States. He was young and inexperienced and thought he could just come there and change things but he could not. He was sad and his belief in God and what was "right" did not really make him a better person and it seems like that was what the author was trying to say about Pyle. This is why he made Pyle and Fowler so different and yet friends. It was not just about religion it was to show that these two men were really different and that the one that seemed good might really be bad, and the one that seemed really bad might really be good.

It is funny that after Pyle dies, Fowler seems to get more religious. One critic says, "It is perhaps possible that the 'someone' of Fowler's last words is God. As the argument goes, Fowler's attempt to live in detachment is bound to fail because, when he finds himself in a dilemma which requires a moral decision, he feels at a loss due to the fact that he cannot draw on any religious resources" (Gaston 68). He says in the book, "I envied those who could believe in God and I distrusted them" (Greene 44). That is funny, because he basically distrusts everyone anyway, so it does not seem like God really has much to do with it. He really does not believe in anybody but himself, so it is not funny that he does not believe in God. There is one part about Fowler though that is missing in Pyle, even though Pyle seems to be the "good" character while Fowler is the "bad" character. Pyle kills people, even innocent people without any regard and Fowler will not do that, he does have a line he will not cross. Fowler talks a lot about not believed in God throughout this book, but he seems like the more "religious" and better man of the two, because he really does not believe in what Pyle is doing and how he kills people so recklessly.