The Portrayal of Women as An Indicator of Imperialistic Ideology

The Portrayal of Women as An Indicator of Imperialistic Ideology

in Graham Greene's The Quiet American

by

Matilde My Kristensen

The Quiet American by Graham Greene is a novel set in the Indochina of the early fifties, during the period of the French war in Vietnam. The novel is widely considered to be autobiographical, as it is based on Greene's experience as a news correspondent in Vietnam during the war. The themes of colonization, imperialism and orientalism inevitably pervade the novel, as we are given a first-hand account of life as a foreigner in a strange country, as a Westerner in a Far-East world, and as a colonizer-by-proxy on a colonized territory. Though Fowler, the protagonist of the novel, is supposed to be ideologically neutral and objective in his perspective, it clearly transpires that his mind is just like that of a colonizer's, manifested in his egocentrism, his superiority complex relative to the locals, and perhaps most notably, in his treatment of and attitude towards women. In fact, several perceivably powerful men characterized in the novel have rather questionable views on the females in their entourage and in general. This, in my opinion, directly mirrors the way in which the allegedly universally inferior native populations were treated during the colonial era, up until the end of the wars of independence, and still are, to a certain extent, today. The treatment of women in Graham Greene's The Quiet American, is thus indicative of, and serves as a metaphor for the overarching imperialistic mindset of the main characters in the novel. 

In the first five chapters, it quickly becomes evident that Phuong, the Vietnamese fiancée of the American Pyle and the ex-lover of the English Fowler, has no control over her own love life and future.

Until she meets Pyle, she is with Fowler, who sees her as nothing more than something to take pleasure in – there is no alternative for her, as marrying a European man was held in high esteem in the context of imperialism. One evening, while still in a relationship with Fowler, Phuong meets Pyle, who falls in love with her. At their first meeting, Phuong's sister Hei interrogates Pyle on his life and his person, and proceeds to advertise her sister, almost as if she were an object up for auction, by telling Pyle that “She is delicate. She needs care. She deserves care. She is very, very loyal”. It already here becomes clear that Phuong has little control over her own love life. After the encounter, it becomes clear that Pyle has an undeniable advantage over Fowler, as he is rich, handsome, and most importantly, he is young. Phuong and Pyle form a couple, until, that is, Phuong is informed that Pyle has been found dead. Instead of crying and feeling the grief of losing a loved one, however, Phuong remains expressionless: “There was no scene, no tears, just thought – the long private thought of somebody who has to alter a whole course of life.” Phuong's reaction and Fowler's description of it suggests that they both know that there was no emotional bond between Phuong and Pyle; that Pyle was merely a tool for Phuong, whose only fate, as the “most beautiful girl in Saigon”, was to marry a wealthy European man – yet another example of Phuong's powerlessness when it comes to her love life, and her life in general. 

This powerlessness experienced by Phuong, manifested in her sister's attempt to marry her off and in the fact that her engagement to Pyle was just a formality, and not a result of love, mirrors the powerlessness of the colonized world. Just like Phuong believes that she needs the companionship of a European or Western man, so too did entire nations, to some extent, believe that they needed the colonizers. It can be argued, however, that Phuong doesn't truly believe she needs a wealthy white man, and that the colonized nations didn't believe either that they needed an imperial presence to function: if this is the case, given that Phuong does not object to her situation and her role in the lives of Pyle and Fowler, an entire new layer of imperial stereotypification is uncovered. If Phuong really is unsatisfied with her treatment, yet says nothing, the book effectively manages to perpetuate the stereotype that Asian women are docile and subservient. 

Indeed, the women in The Quiet American are portrayed rather like docile, subservient and exotic maids. This portrayal parallels the way in which entire colonized nations were made exotic by the imperial powers during the colonial era, reducing them to being referred to as the “other”. The way in which Greene renders the women in the novel, Phuong in particular, an “other”, is in part by objectifying them through the character of Fowler. In the very first chapter, Fowler describes Phuong as “the hiss of steam, the clink of a cup, she was a certain hour of the night and the promise of rest” and “indigenous like a herb”. The last description especially, echoes the portrayal of the native colonized peoples and lands: indigenous. The colonized were made to feel like inferior “others” who needed to be civilized and educated by the Europeans, and were even referred to as “the White man's burden”. Also in chapter one, Fowler's interior monologue has him thinking, “She must have loved him in her own way”, in which it becomes obvious that Fowler sees Phuong as different, as not possibly being able to love like he does, or like a European might – to him, her love is different, her feelings are not as worthy as those of Westerners. He is thereby making her an “other”, revealing his imperialistic attitude.

While there is an important element of objectification in the way that the women in the novel are treated, the fact that the women are portrayed in such a way that they appear to be fragile, defenseless and vulnerable can also be interpreted to being a feminization of the women. A practically universal social norm states that while the males of society are supposed to be imposing and physically strong, women are supposed to be gentle and rather innocent. This excessive feminization of the female characters in The Quiet American is a metaphor for the feminization of Vietnam itself. In the same way that women are fragile and inferior to men, so is Vietnam inferior to the English, the Americans and the French, and so is the colonized world inferior to the imperial empire. 

There is a last, obvious parallel between the treatment of women and the treatment of the colonized nations: the exploitation they underwent, and undergo. In the first chapter of The Quiet American, Fowler tells us, “I shut my eyes and she was again the same as she used to be: she was the hiss of steam, the clink of a cup, she was a certain hour of the night and the promise of rest.” In this passage, Fowler does not once describe Phuong's character of personality. He only describes her in terms of services she can provide, of things she can do for him. Moreover, in the same scene, Phuong prepares an opium pipe for Fowler. This image is doubly significant, since not only do we see Phuong servicing the Englishman by heating the opium and preparing his pipe, but it makes an allusion to the poppy fields of Indochina, in which locals slaved days upon end to procure opium for their colonizers. Here, Phuong undoubtedly symbolizes her whole nation, and perhaps even the entire colonized world, by way of her exploitation by a European man.

When Fowler is finished smoking his pipe, he narrates to the reader his feelings about Phuong at that moment: first, he deliberates on whether or not she would want to have sexual intercourse with him, whereafter he asserts that after four pipes, “I would no longer want her”. “It would be agreeable to feel her thigh beside me in the bed”, yet “her presence of absence mattered very little”. This extract from Fowler's interior monologue perfectly showcases how Fowler uses Phuong as an object, and only for his own enjoyment and comfort – she is exploited.

Another part of the novel, the beginning of chapter three, presents the reader with a new form of exploitation: the prostitutes in the House of Five Hundred Girls. Prostitution is unquestionably the most widely practiced form of exploitation, even when it is remunerated. Fowler meets Pyle and Granger in the brothel, standing among the hundreds of Vietnamese girls willing to sell themselves to these European men in exchange for money. Once again, the exploitation by the white Europeans and Americans of the “indigenous” Vietnamese, is symbolic of the large-scale, widespread exploitation of colonized peoples by colonizers. Interestingly, Fowler notes that standing amongst the prostitutes, Granger “took this demonstration as a tribute to his manhood” – here, Fowler mocks Granger for feeling masculine and powerful next to the girls, yet has not yet seemed to realize that he himself is the epitome of a colonial exploiter. 

Indeed, the way in which the women in The Quiet American are treated and viewed, serves as a metaphor for the treatment of the colonized world by the European or Western colonizers. There is, firstly, Phuong's lack of control or agency in terms of her own love life and fate, which is suggestive of the impuissance of Indochina at the time. This lack of control is one that is imposed on Phuong by her sister, who seems to have an attitude of collaboration with the colonizers: she is pragmatic in her actions, seeking financial security for her sister and perhaps herself by taking advantage of the men's weakness for docile, loyal, beautiful women. Then, the element of exoticism is evident in the novel, and the glorification of Phuong as the perfect, quiet, servile East-Asian woman symbolizes how colonizers conceivably wish the colonized people behaved. But beyond a mere exotification of the Vietnamese woman, the stereotypes to which she falls victim ultimately make of her nothing more than an “other”, someone different, less intelligent, less cultured and less civilized than Fowler, who in this instance represents the colonial power. 

Last, there is, of course, the exploitation of Phuong and of the prostitutes in a Vietnamese brothel – they are straight-forward metaphors for the exploitation of the man-power, the women, the children, the resources and the land of the colonized nations. All of these points demonstrate the mentality of Fowler and of his white friends. The way in which the women in The Quiet American are treated, thoroughly mirrors the way in which Indochina and the colonized world was treated, and the exploitative behavior of Thomas Fowler is largely indicative of his hypocritical imperialistic mindset.