Objectification and Liberation: Asian Women as Symbol in Greene's The Quiet American

Jeremy Sideris

Fowler, Pyle, and Phuong, the main characters of The Quiet American, operate on intertwined mental realities. Their political dogma actively collides and merges with the cultural mores they bring with them to the story. The result is that these characters have a double meaning. They become allegoric for the larger world events around them, symbolizing Greene's opinions of the Cold War-era politics of liberation, imperialism, and sex. Like chess pieces, they follow set roles, each affecting the end result. Fowler, the cynical English reporter and Greene's persona in the story, is a self-absorbed, womanizing non-interventionist. He speaks, represents, and furthers the rhetoric of the rising anti-colonialism movement of the 1950's (" I said to Pyle, 'Do you think they know they fighting for democracy? We ought to have York Harding here to explain it to them'" (Greene 93)). Pyle, an American government operative, is the opposite of Fowler, as he is pro-intervention. Although he is not a womanizer like Fowler, he promotes the racial and gender-based stereotypes that Fowler disdains (" They'll be forced to believe what they are told. They won't be allowed to think for themselves" (Greene 95)). Phuong, a native Vietnamese woman, is noticeably voiceless in the novel, but becomes a number of archetypes. She symbolizes the common Vietnamese populace caught in the crossfire of foreign interests ("You and your like are trying to make a war with people who just aren't interested" (Greene 94). Importantly, Phuong also represents indigenous women as thinking, cognizant female human beings, not as colonial-inspired stereotypes (There was no scene, no tears, just thought -- the long private thought of somebody who has to alter the whole course of life" (Greene 22)).

On the surface, The Quiet American is again like a game of chess with very few winners because " nothing nowadays is fabulous, and nothing rises from the ashes" (Greene 11). As metaphors, however, they successfully convey Greene's various messages; one of the most subtle, yet strongest being female liberation from stereotype. He speaks of this theme often in the interaction of the three main characters.

Greene's treatment of Phuong, mistress to both Fowler and Pyle, is ironic. Having been given almost no voice of her own, Greene has her defined by her lovers. Yet at the end of the novel, despite Fowler's admonition that " one never knows another human being" (Greene 133), it is Phuong who has proven to have been the most individual and resilient. Her unwavering strength, found in the absolute conviction and loyalty to herself, allows her to remain unchanged, regardless of the man who she is currently with. Such is the case when Fowler speaks to Pyle:

"She's no child. She's tougher than you'll ever be. Do you know the kind of polish that doesn't take scratches? That's Phuong. She can survive a dozen of us. She'll get old, that's all. She'll suffer from childbirth and hunger and cold and rheumatism, but she'll never suffer like we do from thoughts, obsessions -- she won't scratch, she'll only decay." (Green 133)

Phuong's strength to resolutely move on is further evidenced by a conversation between her and Fowler:

I said to Phuong, 'Do you miss him much?'

'Who?'

'Pyle.' Strange how even now, even to her, it was impossible to use his first name.

'Can I go please? My sister will be so excited.'

'You spoke his name once in your sleep.'

'I never remember my dreams.'

'There was so much you could have done together. He was young.'

'You are not old.' (Green 189)

The majority of what the reader learns about Phuong comes second hand through Fowler's narration in the form of discussions between him, a pessimist, and the dangerously naive Pyle. These conversations occur during their verbal competition for her and a contrasting taxonomy ensues. Phuong is described within both the context of the old rhetoric of imperialism and that of the then emerging post-colonial world. Adding to Greene's use of irony is that the much younger Pyle adheres to archaic colonial descriptions of his love while the older Fowler attempts to see his mistress as a woman and not an stereotype. The result is a deliberate, systematic deconstruction of racial, gender-based stereotypes by Greene. This is evident for whenever Pyle attempts to classify Phuong, Greene has Fowler there to counter his thinking. For instance, Fowler attempts to discourage Pyle's ideas when he says: " It's a cliche to call them children -- but there is one thing that is childish. They love you in return for kindness, security, the presents you give them -- they hate you for a blow or injustice" (Greene 104). He reinforces his position with the explanation that " 'Love's a Western word. We use it for sentimental reasons or to cover up an obsession with one woman. These people don't suffer from obsessions. You are going to be hurt, Pyle, if you are not careful'" (Greene 133). Undaunted, Pyle dismisses Fowler, saying his arguments are based on " faked evidence. And [Phuong] a child at that" (Greene 133).

Pyle's notion of natives, especially indigenous women, as innocent objects in the game of life is nothing new. Rather, Pyle's colonial thinking

"denotes the close association of indigenous people with the nobility of nature which often shaded the reports of early European explorers. Another stereotype, closely linked to, but in some ways more pervasive, is that of the nubile savage. If the noble savage idea persists in a muted form, the nubile savage assumes an even stronger place in the Western imagination. In the broadest sense, the term 'nubile savage' refers to the portrayal of indigenous women as sexually inviting and desirable. This is not a feature peculiar to the South Pacific. Edward in his classic text Orientalism, for example, remarks on the unlimited sensuality attributed to women by writers of the Orient." (Sturma 7)

Pyle is not alone in this categorizing of Phuong. Her sister, Miss Hei, also creates a stereotypical picture of Phuong: " She is delicate...She needs care. She deserves care. She is very, very loyal...[and] she loves children" (Green 42). With this description, Hei plays directly into Pyle's colonial Western sensibilities as " the stereotypical Asian woman is often portrayed as more feminine, docile and sexually pliable" (Sturma 9).

Furthermore, Pyle's Objectification of Phuong is also based on the racist rhetoric of European eugenics and the American " Yellow Scare." This rhetoric stipulates that women, especially non-white native women can somehow corrupt and diminish the creative potency of the " civilized" white male. More of a subconscious fear than an outspoken hatred, Pyle often complains that his " love" for the Vietnamese Phuong obsesses him, to the point of his desire to leave the operative job he loves. Yet like the concept of the " nubile savage," the fear of the

"native leads him to develop negative mental constructs (in this case obsession) as to who Phuong is. For in both the sexual and the economic realm, the middle-class male found himself required to share the temple of his body with an invasive other who brought death into his world. The sexual woman and the Bolshevik had fused in evil beauty of the Eurasian temptress who was both a vampire and a socially subversive emissary of the " lower orders." This erotic terrorist demanded that the middle-class male let himself be drained of his vital essence. Once turned into a paralyzed victim of the 'lower orders,' he must become a new recruit to the principles of miscegenation and a collectivism, a 'degenerated being.' Thus, by giving into the Eurasian vampire the evolutionary male lost his identity." (Dijkstra 279)

Pyle's strong desire to possess Phuong frustrates him. As a colonial-minded Westerner, however, he sees Phuong as

"the predatory vampire woman remaining firmly linked with the imperial male's mixture of longing and fear for the undiscovered territories' of the 'primitive' world, just as she had been in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. The islands, rivers and caves of as yet unconquered territories came to be equated with the mysterious cavities of the feminine body. In the minds of the early-twentieth century colonizers, unknown lands exerted an attraction that seemed analogous to the erotic lure and unexplored temptations of the sexual (and hence 'primitive') woman." (Dijkstra 285)

The young American therefore feels both attraction and revulsion for his construct of Phuong.

Greene has ideologues (i.e. Sax Rohmer) and their Euro-centric social philosophies popular in the first half of the century represented by Pyle's favorite author, the fictional York Harding:

'You always laugh at York,' said Pyle.

'I laugh at anyone who spends so much time writing about what doesn't exist--

mental concepts.'

'They exist for him.' (Greene 95)

Fowler dismisses both Harding and Pyle's stereotypes of Phuong as naive and unsophisticated. Whereas the author uses Pyle to demonstrate the mores of colonial thinking, thereby objectifying Phuong, he employs Fowler to liberate her with the rhetoric of the dawning post- colonial age: " 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 94). Greene's liberation of Phuong is as much sexual as it is national (If it is only her interests you care about, for God's sake leave Phuong alone. Like any other woman she'd rather have a good...' The crash of the mortar saved Boston ears from the Anglo-Saxon word" (Greene 59). Admittedly Fowler uses her, but as much as he employs her for company and relief from his old age, she benefits from the security he provides. In addition, Fowler views Phuong as an equal, an adult capable of her own decisions, not a child to be looked out for:

'That's not love.'

'Perhaps it's not your way of love, Pyle.'

'I want to protect her.'

'I don't. She doesn't need protection. I want her around, I want her in my bed.'

'Against her will?'

'She wouldn't stay against her will, Pyle.' (Greene 133)

And:

'You'll just keep her as a comfortable lay until you leave.'

'She's human being, Pyle. She's capable of deciding. (Greene 134).

Greene uses two main characters (Fowler and Pyle) of The Quiet American to demonstrate old and new social thinking. He does this by having them define a third character (Phuong). It is through the comparison of definitions that we see different dogmas, including that of the role, freedom, and nature of women, particularly those classified as "native."

Works Cited

Dijkstra, Bram. Evil Sisters: The Threat of Female Sexuality and the Cult of Manhood. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996.

Greene, Graham. The Quiet American. Great Britain: William Heinemann Ltd, 1955.

Sturma, Michael. " The Nubile Savage; Stereotyping Indigenous Women as Sex Objects." History Today April 1995: 7-10. Online. Lexis-Nexis. 6 February 1998. Available:

http://web.lexis-nexis.com/universe...5=a9f5d2baa9de2c4a8f50003011e484819