He sincerely believes in the correctness of the US actions in Vietnam and in every possible way contributes to the growing nightmare. Pyle is precisely the “quiet American,” but his head is crammed with other people’s thoughts about journalism and all kinds of agitation. He is simply observing the events in Vietnam, not wanting to analyze what is happening, take sides, or give facts a subjective assessment. Thomas Fowler is “an English journalist living in Saigon, covering the French Indochina war” and he is the one telling the story 3. He is confident that he carries the great American mission of spreading the values of democracy and that the end justifies the means, but most of all he is confident in his faultlessness. As Evans rightly points out, Pyle’s “main business in the Orient seems to be to encourage anti-communism sentiment” 2. The Quiet American was written as a kind of investigation of the murder of Alden Pyle, who arrived in Vietnam with a humanitarian aid mission, but ended up engaged in subversive terrorist activities.

The differences between Thomas Fowler and Alden Pyle Finally, the essay will examine the true moral natures of The Quiet American’s characters and provide a personal opinion on them. Then, the love triangle between Fowler, Pyle, and Phuong will be examined as an allegory for the political agendas of the three countries involved in the conflict. The second part will explain how the characters in this novel represent their respective countries.

The first part of this essay will examine the differences between the two principal characters, Thomas Fowler and Alden Pyle.

The quiet american book review