The Quiet American
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As an Iranian female, I read Graham GreeneÆs (2004) The Quiet American with shock and awe. Though the adventures of Alden Pyle in Saigon of the 1950s is the topic and focus of GreeneÆs novel, I was amazed and shocked at the similarities to American intervention in the Middle East in contemporary times. PyleÆs mission in Asia is to ôimproveö things, to spread democracy, and to stop the spread of anti-democratic regimes, (Greene, 2004, p. 13). This mission is eerily close if not identical to U.S. intervention in Iraq. However, Pyle will die in his mission to finance the spread of democracy in Asia, primarily from his ignorance of the country and its people which leads to strategies that are better for them than neither communism or colonialism. Though the recent Harvard graduate Alden Pyle arrives in Saigon in order to ôimproveö things and ôto do good,ö he remains blind to the nature of Vietnam and its people and culture, (Greene, 2004, p. 13). Though he thinks he can do good for the country and the world by spreading Christian, democratic (i.e. Western) values and institutions, Pyle never really comes to see Vietnam and its people as an ôinsider.ö Though he is viewed as a ôquiet American,ö in reality, we are told he will never experience Vietnam in the way the Vietnamese do. Pyle ignores the ôreal background that held you as a smell does: the gold of the rice-fields under a flat late sun: the fishersÆ fragile cranes hovering over t
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Approximate Word count = 985
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page)
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