Literary Devices in The Quiet American
Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory
Setting
The Quiet American is set in Vietnam toward the end of the first Indochina War. Before U.S. troops entered the country in what Americans remember as the Vietnam War, French occupiers were fighting...
Narrator Point of View
Late in the novel, the police inspector Vigot explains to Thomas Fowler the logic of confessing one's sins. The penitent confessing doesn't always seek cleansing, as Fowler guesses. "Sometimes he o...
Genre
The Quiet American is a fictional novel set in Vietnam during the Indochina War (1946-1954), when French colonialists were fighting Viet Minh communists. It was the best of times, it was the worst...
Tone
Thomas Fowler, the first person narrator, thinks of himself as a reporter, someone who writes about what he sees. He tries to describe and explain objectively, from a distance. Of course, he's repo...
Writing Style
The Quiet American is written in Graham Greene's signature style: descriptive but to the point, conversational but tightly structured. He uses long sentences, but breaks them up with hyphens, colon...
What's Up With the Title?
"He's a good chap in his way. Serious. Not one of those noisy bastards at the Continental. A quiet American," says Thomas Fowler, describing Alden Pyle to the inspector, Vigot. "A very quiet Americ...
What's Up With the Epigraph?
"I do not like being moved: for the will is excited; and actionIs a most dangerous thing; I tremble for something factitious,Some malpractice of heart and illegitimate process;We're so prone to the...
What's Up With the Ending?
By the end, Fowler has everything he wants. He's free of Pyle. He has his divorce. He can stay with Phuong and marry her. He can continue to be a reporter. Life's not back to the way it was before...
Tough-o-Meter
Like other Graham Greene novels, The Quiet American is concisely written and plotted. You don't get bogged down in details or descriptions. The action moves quickly and a lot of the text is crisp d...
Plot Analysis
Not Guilty! NOT Guilty, I said!Alden Pyle, the quiet American, is dead. How? Why? We don't know yet, but the narrator, Thomas Fowler, suspiciously pleads his innocence. And we mean suspiciously, li...
Booker's Seven Basic Plots Analysis
Thomas Fowler, the narrator and "uninvolved" protagonist of The Quiet American, slowly but steadily begins to see the monster that is the innocent Alden Pyle. It is in fact Pyle's innocence that ma...
Three-Act Plot Analysis
Fowler is uninvolved. He sort of befriends Pyle and maybe sort of loves Phuong, but he hasn't given himself fully to either relationship. He's as distant from them as he is from the battles and blo...
Trivia
Like Thomas Fowler, Graham Greene was a war correspondent who covered the Indochina War. He even stayed at the same hotel—what are the chances? (That was a joke, of course. With Greene, apparentl...
Steaminess Rating
The Quiet American has a few, concise descriptions of Fowler having sexual intercourse with his lover, Phuong, who lives with him, and a scene that takes place in a locale called House of the Five...
Allusions
Blaise Pascal, The Pensées (1.1.62) (3.1.1.42)Hamlet (1.4.1.56)Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy (1.5.1.35)Kinsey Report (2.2.3.152)Hitler (1.1.19)