The True Upholders of Liberty
During the Cold War, Americans believed "it became necessary to destroy the town to save it” (Arnett) from the greater threat of Soviet domination. After World War II ended in 1945, the capitalistic democratic United States found itself fighting a battle of ideologies against its former ally, the communist totalitarian Soviet Union; state-controlled Soviet communism clashed with both American free market capitalism and representative democracy. When Ho Chi Minh and the communist Vietminh defeated the French army in Vietnam in 1954, Americans believed that the Vietminh were offshoots of monolithic Soviet communism, which is the idea that all communist countries were controlled by the Soviet Union. Thus, in order to stop the spread of communism, the United States installed the anti-colonialist anti-communist Ngo Dinh Diem as the ruler of South Vietnam. In the historical fiction novel The Quiet American by Graham Greene, Thomas Fowler, a cynical British journalist, and Alden Pyle, an idealistic young American who turns to terrorism to combat both the French and the Vietminh, represent European and American views on …show more content…
Although both Fowler and Pyle support anti-colonialism in Graham Greene’s The Quiet American, ultimately Pyle’s interventionist viewpoint is unjustified because it is motivated by American arrogance and the irrational fear of monolithic
During the Cold War, Americans believed "it became necessary to destroy the town to save it” (Arnett) from the greater threat of Soviet domination. After World War II ended in 1945, the capitalistic democratic United States found itself fighting a battle of ideologies against its former ally, the communist totalitarian Soviet Union; state-controlled Soviet communism clashed with both American free market capitalism and representative democracy. When Ho Chi Minh and the communist Vietminh defeated the French army in Vietnam in 1954, Americans believed that the Vietminh were offshoots of monolithic Soviet communism, which is the idea that all communist countries were controlled by the Soviet Union. Thus, in order to stop the spread of communism, the United States installed the anti-colonialist anti-communist Ngo Dinh Diem as the ruler of South Vietnam. In the historical fiction novel The Quiet American by Graham Greene, Thomas Fowler, a cynical British journalist, and Alden Pyle, an idealistic young American who turns to terrorism to combat both the French and the Vietminh, represent European and American views on …show more content…
Although both Fowler and Pyle support anti-colonialism in Graham Greene’s The Quiet American, ultimately Pyle’s interventionist viewpoint is unjustified because it is motivated by American arrogance and the irrational fear of monolithic