"Innocence is a Kind of Insanity": Pyle and the Third Force

“…Do you expect General Thé to lose his demonstration? This is better than a parade. Women and children are news, and soldiers aren’t, in a war. This will hit the world’s Press. You’ve put General Thé on the map all right, Pyle. You’ve got the Third Force and National Democracy all over your right shoe. Go home to Phoung and tell her about your heroic dead––there are a few dozen less of her people to worry about… and I thought, ‘What’s the good? he’ll always be innocent, you can't blame the innocent, they are always guiltless. All you can do is control them or eliminate them. Innocence is a kind of insanity’ (Greene 163).

A theme that I have been following in The Quiet American is the way western perceptions of Vietnamese political desires are portrayed. Specifically in this passage, I am interested in Pyle’s overgeneralizing belief that the solution to the political crisis in Vietnam is a Third Force rather than Communism or Democracy. A common theme in the novel is the assertion of western viewpoints as truth, while the political beliefs of Vietnamese characters are often rendered voiceless in the novel. In several cases, Pyle and Fowler actually disguise their highly invested ideologies as disinterested or innocent views. 

After Fowler witnesses the detonation of Pyle’s bomb in the town plaza, Fowler criticizes Pyle for his decision to join General Thé, who Pyle had believed to be the answer to his so called Third Force. Pyle’s naiveté that rushed him into following the plans of General Thé illustrates the danger of enforcing western viewpoints as the best solution. While Pyle believed that the Third Force was a neutral force that represented the answer to the Vietnam War, the reality of death and war are materialized as Fowler says, “You’ve got the Third Force and National Democracy all over your right shoe.” By pointing the blood of the Vietnamese that died in the bombing, Fowler attempts to show Pyle the reality of his idealistic beliefs of innocence. Fowler’s claim that “innocence is a kind of insanity” illustrates the way that innocence and ideology go hand in hand in distorting reality.

Lastly, I would like to point out the way that Phoung serves as a distraction for Fowler that blinds him from the reality behind Pyle’s actions. Fowler attempts to pin all of the blame for the bombing on Pyle, while Fowler may actually be less innocent than he believes. Even within the above passage, Phoung serves as an object of jealousy as Fowler tells Pyle to “go home to her.” Because Fowler’s perception of Pyle is completely obscured by their rivalry over Phoung, Fowler doesn’t see Pyle as the threat that he is.