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What Is Fowler's View On The Conflict In The Quiet American

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In The Quiet American by Graham Greene, narrator Thomas Fowler has opposing views on the conflict in Vietnam compared to secondary protagonist, Alden Pyle. Pyle is American and believes strongly in democratic and anti-communist sentiments, while the older, English-born Fowler holds the more traditional beliefs of Western Europe. In Graham Greene’s novel The Quiet American, Fowler’s perspective on the conflict in Vietnam is more justified than that of Pyle because of his ability to see Ho Chi Minh as a nationalist who cares more for the well-being of his country than his economic ideas, as well as his recognition of America’s arrogance towards the Vietnamese while occupying Vietnam. Fowler is able to view Ho Chi Minh as a nationalist who is using communism …show more content…

However, Fowler is able to recognize that true freedom is giving the Vietnamese the opportunity to pick their own leader and be independent from the control of the Americans and other Western nations. Fowler realizes that he and Pyle do not know what is best for the people of Vietnam, and the only way to empower them is to allow them to make their own decisions and not be controlled by the Americans or any other foreign power. He expresses to Pyle that they do not want American democracy, “They want enough rice. They don't want to be shot at. They want one day to be much the same as another. They don't want our white skins around telling them what they want” (Greene 87). Due to Fowler’s experience in Indochina, he understands the struggles of everyday life for the malnourished, neglected citizens who are caught in a civil war over a government that is insignificant to them. They want to be allowed to live in peace, without the fear of being killed or hurt in

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In a “Vietnam Veterans against the war”, John Kerry’s comment on President Nixon not wanting to become, “the first President to lose a war,” illustrates just how insistent Nixon was on maintaining a superior Presidential image of power. Ironically, Nixon has one of the more, if not the most, tarnished Presidential image due to the Watergate scandal. Kerry’s speech drove the idea that the Veterans fighting in Vietnam did not believe that they were there to do good and did not feel that they were the “heroes” liberalizing the Vietnamese from the dangers of communism. As he notes, most people there did not understand the difference between communism and democracy. The freedom the Vietnamese sought was liberation from the helicopters, the bombs,

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President Lyndon Johnson declared a campaign to win the “hearts and minds” of the Vietnamese, and the United States decisively lost that battle. At the beginning of Truong’s book he shares what ideas are going through his heart and mind, “I would have been willing to accept almost amy regime that could achieve real independence and that had the welfare of the people at heart. I was quite prepared to give Ho’s Northern government the benefit of the doubt on this score”(36). This quote illustrates the minds of a Vietnamese population desperate for independence in any form. They had been subjected to outside imperial forces for hundreds of years prior and were poised to accept any leader willing to help them to independence.

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Similarly to social tensions, political tensions must be resolved. As expressed in Country Joe’s song, Americans followed their government. Whatever was decided by the authorities, the civilians followed. “And it’s one, two, three, What are we fighting for? Don’t ask me I don’t give a damn, Next stop is Vietnam,” [Doc B].

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Fowler’s description of Vietnam depicts different examples of his view of the country. He describes the beauty of “The gold of the rice-fields under the flat late sun ... the gold and the young green and the bright dresses of the south,” along with the darkness of the war: “in the north the deep browns and the black clothes and the circle of enemy mountains and the drone of planes. ”(Greene, 1955, p.17). Fowler sees both the positive and the negative in the country of Vietnam and presents his knowledge of both.

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In this story, O’Brien paints a highly conventionalized version of Vietnam as a world that deeply affects the foreign Americans who live in it. He outlines a strong difference between the native world of Vietnam and the world of the Americans. Mary Anne Bell fully embraces Vietnamese culture, while Mark Fossie ignores it. The difference between their experiences sets up a world in which the separate cultures are completely foreign to, and incompatible with each other. O’Brien does not suggest that one can assimilate elements of each culture into a comfortable mix.

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Fowler comforted the Vietnamese informant Mr. Heng when telling him, “If you are hinting that you are a Communist, or a Vietminh, don’t worry” (Greene 120). This shows that in almost all aspects Fowler can be extremely empathetic to where someone is coming from. This really speaks words to how Fowler behaves as a person day to day, he does not lack judgement, on the contrary all he suitably looks for is honesty in order to possess a more authentic perception on the other individual’s perspective. Fowler understands where the Vietnamese are coming from as well as that all they genuinely desire is to be able to take on their own fulfilling independent lives. The secretary of the notorious NSC committee warned the president that, “...every individual faces the ever-present possibility of annihilation should the conflict enter the phase of total war”(Doc

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