The Quiet American

The Quiet American depicts French colonial forces and European colonists fighting a terminal battle against their own decline. The novel is set toward the end of French colonial control of Vietnam. A war is raging between the French colonial forces and the Viet Minh, a faction of Vietnamese communists who are fighting for independence. In the aftermath of two World Wars, the French colonists in Vietnam are facing the reality of a fading empire and a period of decline. During this era, France began to lose many of its colonial outposts. France sent troops from other colonies such as Morocco and Senegal to police the Vietnamese. That tactical decision uprooted colonial subjects from one corner of the empire and sent them to enact violence at the other end. The Quiet American shows that French colonialism is unsustainable. The old hotels and bars are crumbling, symbols of the colonial culture that have been imposed on the people of Vietnam for the French state’s profit. Amid this, Thomas Fowler operates as a self-declared neutral, yet he is English, a citizen of a once-huge empire that is facing a decline like France. Fowler, even though he insists that he takes no sides, is European and, therefore, a representative of European colonialism.