Graham Greene's "The Quiet American" breakdown illustrates the declining colonial French influence in Vietnam aside the early American involvement in the First Indochina War. Through clever use of romantic competition as a an analogy for colonial power dynamics, the compelling novel beautifully depicts the pitfalls of American exceptionalism, the cruciality of masculinity, and the land of the colonized as an inherently feminine concept.

Masculinity is to be conquered:

The Quiet American illustrates colonialism as a game of masculinity, as a literal tournament between nouveau American colonists and traditional, much older, British and French colonial powers; and “the best man wins” lady Vietnam. The text clearly depicts a fight for dominance among the main characters; “I don’t care that for her interests. You can have her interests. I only want her body. I want her in bed with me. I’d rather ruin her and sleep with her than, than… look after her damned interests. (Greene 70)” This utterance by Fowler seems straightforward enough in its misogyny, and while it is, it also is one of the many instances where Greene carefully constructed the narrative of women, and land, as conquests and as status symbols of masculine dominance. Pyle, on the surface, is a candid young man who throughout the novel tries very hard to impact Vietnam in a positive way–looking after Vietnam’s interest– while Fowler is never written with any desire for the current political situation to change in a real way.

Another explicit parallel between colonial and gender dynamics is the theme of experience between characters. Fowler is a man looking for a caretaker in Phuong due to his old age, reflecting Britain’s reign as the most powerful Empire in the world coming to an end, shown in the way they tried and failed to assert themselves in Vietnam. Though the United States were defeated by Vietnam as well–translated by Pyle’s murder–the youthful colonizer has received a prestigious education and has read about the region’s political and ideological conflicts at length, therefore expects his assignment to go through seamlessly. This naïveté manifests in the way Pyle’s theorized virginity becomes an integral part of his character. This assumed inexperience with women allowed Pyle to fly off the radar and seem unthreatening; “That was my first instinct – to protect him. (Greene 40)” This dance to assert oneself as manliest along with the colonial self-imposed duty to “civilize” nations are customs that may appear to value heterosexual marriage and the betterment of society respectively, yet reveals itself to be nothing but a game played out by men, for validation from men.

Masculinity is to be conquered:

The perceived sexual inexperience working in Pyle’s favor is an interesting aspect of the narrative when understood aside heterosexual infidelity being the greatest act of humiliation against masculinity. Despite Fowler seemingly “giving up” the fight for Phuong (Greene 113), he is ultimately humiliated and loses respectability because his girl walked away with a younger, awkward, inexperienced man. “It never occurred to me that there was greater need to protect myself. Innocence calls mutely for protection, when we would be so much wiser to guard ourselves against it. (Greene 40)” Detective Vigot is the least respected man of the story given the fact that he loves his wife, while she pays no attention to him. He is described as directionless and depressed, but rarely with no mention of his cheating wife, making him a failure of a man; “he smiled miserably, and for some reason I thought of that Blonde wife of his who was said to betray him with his junior officers. (Greene 178)”