In Graham Greene’s The
Quiet American, we see another example of the themes of love and
infidelity. We have seen Greene explore these themes in his short stories and
most notably through the characters of Scobie, Helen and Louise in “The Heart
of the Matter.” Here, we see a very similar love triangle between the
characters of Pyle, Fowler and Phuong. In both works, we see the situation from
the eyes of the main characters of Scobie and Fowler and although both
characters face a similar conflict of sorts, we see that their situations are
remarkably different.
Fowler, like
Scobie, is a married man who is unhappy in his relationship. We see that through
his letter to his wife, he feels that it is his fault that their marriage has
failed when he writes, “To this day I’m not certain what went wrong (I know we
both tried), but I think it was my temper. I know how cruel and bad my temper
can be” (72). In this statement, Fowler seems to admit that he has been the
cause of the rift that has formed between he and his wife and he wants to have
a mutually satisfied divorce. Although this seems rather noble of him, he later
reveals to Pyle that he does it more out of fear: “I just don’t want to be
alone in my last decade, that’s all. I wouldn’t know what to think about all
day long…But if Phuong left me, would I have the energy to find another?” (96).
In a way, I cannot help but feel sympathy for Fowler, but he seems to have a
warped idea of love and happiness. Much like the way Scobie mistakes
responsibility for love, Fowler looks at love as a means to an end so to speak.
He is not interested in Phuong solely because he loves her, but because this
love will bring him happiness and peace in his last years. Fowler exhibits a
remarkable selfish train of thought when compared to that of Scobie’s. Scobie
was very selfless in his actions (although his motivations were skewed) and was
very interested in making those around him happy.
We see here the noticeable contrast between
each person’s idea of love, but it is also interesting that they both look to
achieve it in a similar fashion. As stated earlier, both characters are
unhappily married and look to other lovers in order to fulfill their needs. It
is interesting to note, however, that both characters seem to find love in much
younger companions. In psychology, one of the stages of death is passing on
knowledge to the younger generation, specifically children. We see Scobie and
Fowler both share their experiences with their lovers and are showing them what
dissatisfaction they have found in their wives. We can infer that there is a lesson
being taught to Helen and Phuong that once Scobie and Fowler pass, that their
mistakes should not be repeated.
9 comments:
Similarly to how Andrew compared Scobie and Fowler, we can compare Wilson and Pyle. Pyle looks at the world through very different eyes than Fowler. He thinks in abstract concepts and is a major supporter of “Democracy.” His motives are idealized and unrealistic, though he does not know it yet. Pyle also has an innocent view of love and thinks that his passion for Phuong will convince her to leave Fowler. Wilson and Pyle both experience love at first sight, but unfortunately, the feeling is not mutual. When Pyle and Wilson profess their love for Phuong and Louise, respectively, they are immediately rejected. Both of them are confused because in their minds, they would make the woman happier. Pyle openly tells Fowler that he “wanted to protect her [Phuong]” (49). Fowler admits that he does not love Phuong in the common sense of the word so Pyle wants to usurp Fowler from his position to be a proper man and husband. Wilson, in a similar way, realizes that Scobie does not love Louise, and wants to show her a real, affectionate type of love. What both of these men do not realize is that their impression of love is just as false and artificial as Scobie’s and Fowler’s sense of love.
I disagree with Piotr when he says that Pyle's impression of love is false and artificial. Though Pyle is no longer a child, he possesses the same innocent love for Phuong as did the narrator of "The Innocent" for his childhood crush. Though it was actually sexually explicit, the drawing that the narrator left in the fencepost possessed a "deep innocence" (46). Yet at the same time, he describes the passion that the drawing represented as being "pure, intense, and painful" (46). By the same token, Pyle bristles at Fowler's self-professed view of Phuong as a sexual object and wants to protect her. "False and artificial" is hard to reconcile with "pure, intense, and painful," so Pyle's love for Phuong should not be so easily discounted.
I’m with Tom on this one. I think Pyle’s understanding of love is not one characterized simply by ideals and weak concepts, but also backed up by action. In Part One, I thought I might agree with Piotr and say that Pyle’s idea of love is childish, almost like a “crush” or “puppy love.” However, when Pyle saves Fowler after he is injured in their escape from the tower, I think he shows that he understands the actions and sacrifices representative of love. Despite Pyle’s jealousy of Fowler, I think he does love him and continually appreciates him as a friend. Throughout Part Two, Fowler is someone that the quiet American can be not so quiet with, allowing him to try to work out the confusion of emotions that he has. Pyle in fact shares that he “wish[es] it was anybody but” Fowler (69) that was in this situation, because he loves both Fowler and Phuong, and wants to avoid conflict with both. Unfortunately, Pyle’s innocent but true love is being challenged, as it seems he will have to choose between the two people he cares for the most.
This is an interesting conversation. You guys have made me less skeptical of Pyle as an admirer of Phuong, yet I do think that his "love" for her is, in some ways, as detached and abstract as his "love" for "Democracy," York Harding, and the Third Force. Though Fowler's attitude towards Phuong is unsentimental, selfish, and possessive, there is a girtty realism there: he loves her for what she is: she is the warmth of another human body. She does not symbolize the East or the feminine mystique. She does not stand for a continent to be conquered. I sense Pyle is more in love with being in love. Perhaps he, like Gatsby, prefers the ideal to the real. But I think the comparisons to the narrator of "The Innocent" are particularly interesting. While that story described the longing one might feel for innocence, this novel captures the danger of mixing innocence and power.
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This comment contains evidence from the last few pages of the book, so read on only if you want to find out Pyle's dark secrets and why he was "responsible for over 50 deaths" (13).
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Thomas and Dan,
While I agree that his love is innocent, and I can acknowledge that he is personally, introspectively convinced that it is true love and a desire to protect, innocence in Pyle's case "is a kind of insanity" (154). Pyle believes in all his own ideals and emotions, and no experience can change convictions, which are "impregnably armoured by his good intentions and his innocence" (155). Even if we don't want to take Fowler's cynicism at face value, Pyle later proves that he does not and can not feel guilty for the deaths he caused because they "were only war casualties...you could say they died for democracy" and that his views on the world are "not likely to change either...except with death" (171). So while Pyle can display all the sincerity and faith in his love and convictions he wants, these convictions rarely if ever match up to the real world and can never adapt to new experiences because he refuses to change them even after 'inadvertently' blowing up a crowded market square. He's justified because there was supposed to be a parade, and the bombing should have been postponed when it was cancelled, but he's innocent because he wasn't around at the right time to double-check everything. Going back to his ideas of love, we see that Phuong really does not understand or believe the Western ideal of Love with a capital L, so to speak, but Pyle would go through his whole life convinced that they both felt the same way.
In the reading for Monday's class,Greene continues to flesh out the divide between Pyle and Fowler's understandings of "love". As was noted earlier, for Fowler a relationship is the closeness of two human bodies. Fowler wants to "keep Phuong", but Pyle refutes this with his own claim that a relationship requires protection to be given by one lover to another. Fowler's vision of a relationship is stripped down to the starkest and most elemental form. Coming from this perspective, he levels a critique against Pyle's notion of love as "Western" (123), a silly, one-sided "obsession" (124) that Phuong in no way will ever reciprocate. This criticism of Pyle's notion of love is a reflection of Fowler's greater criticism that the Western language which includes words like "democracy" is incompatible with the Eastern world. Additionally, the divide between their understandings of relationships is further developed with Pyle's belief that Phuong needs a cleaner life, with "children" and the "newest television set" (124). Pyle's understanding of his role as a provider in a relationship is regarded as an unfounded presumption by Fowler who believes "one never knows another human being"(124)[an echoing of Heart of the Matter for sure]. Fowler discounts the role truthfulness and an ability to provide play in relations, a Western assumption that nearly matches in fatuity the Third Force and York Harding.
I agree with John's assessment of Pyle and would just like to expand upon Phuong's warped idea of love. We see her bounce back and forth between being with Pyle and Fowler throughout the novel and it seems she gravitates to who can provide comfort for her and hopefully, children. Fowler says it best wnen speaking about Phuong and Love: "Love's a Western word...We use it for sentimental reasons" (122-123). Phuong cannot "love" in the way we know it because she has a different concept of love. To her, there are only the emotions of warmth, safety and satisfaction. She also allows Fowler to take her body whenever he pleases which makes it appear as if that is her way of paying back for what is given to her. Phuong's job very much fits her idea of men: give them what they want and take what you can get.
Shifting the focus of the discussion back to Fowler for a moment, I think we need to give him a bit more credit. Yes, his concept of love is certainly misguided, it is certainly not malicious (the original post paints it a bit that way). Fowler is not simply using Phuong so that he is not alone, he legitimately fears being alone. He wants to be with someone, but specifically with her. And I believe that he does love Phuong a little deeper than this: when Pyle does steal her from Fowler, Fowler becomes so distraught that he makes a fool of himself, going to public areas and declaring that Pyle "stole" her. He is legitimately upset; seemingly heartbroken. He clearly does love her in a normal fashion, though more subconsciously.
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