Nov 16, 2009

The Quiet American | Characters

Characterization is the key to The Quiet American, in that Greene, to develop his political concerns, uses Fowler to represent one set of ideas and Pyle another. However, that technique can be dangerous for a novel, because to develop his theme of personal involvement, the characters must be convincing as real people; the more flat, character-as-function-of-story characterization of The Power and the Glory (1940) would not be appropriate here. In general, Greene seems to succeed, particularly with Fowler. Although Fowler claims complete detachment, his love, or at least...