In the novel “The Quiet American” by Graham Green, Pyle fails to learn that duty to one’s ideals or beliefs should not cloak the reality of the world because his innocent and naive nature does not allow him to accept any other beliefs besides democracy. As Pyle puts it after he is partially responsible for the death of many Vietnamese civilians, “you could say they died for democracy” (171). Pyle believes that the fight for democracy is worth the cost of human life because they died for a good cause. Pyle is blinded by the ideals of democracy and cannot understand that killing people randomly for democracy is not helping the Vietnamese at all. Pyle fails to see that democracy is in fact harming the Vietnamese and sticks stubbornly to his beliefs
