Collateral Damage in the Making of the US Empire in Graham Greene’s The Quiet American
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This paper presents a case study through a textual analysis of Graham Greene’s novel, The Quiet American, to investigate the late US capitalism and expansionism which have relied on its strong military, political, and economic power since the mid-twentieth century. First published in England in 1955, this novel was commercially successful, and over the years has achieved the status of a classic novel, with film adaptations in both 1958 and 2002. However, American readers were incensed upon its 1956 publication in the US, due to the novel’s negative portrayal of Americans as being naively idealistic and recklessly destructive. It is true, however, that this novel reveals how, since the dawn of the Cold War, US interventionism and exceptionalism have constantly been the transnational strategy to achieve Pax Americana, under the pretense of bringing democracy to dictatorships, eliminating terrorism, and liberating the oppressed in the Third World. Specifically, this paper examines this rather “biased,” yet simultaneously genuine novel regarding how US intervention in Vietnam from the 1950s through the 1970s played a role in embodying the US empire “the way we know it,” an heir to old European empires in the age of global capitalism. Ultimately, this paper shows the extent to which the US political agenda of the Cold War driven by American exceptionalism played out, creating an American empire distinct from its European counterparts.
Abstract
This paper presents a case study through a textual analysis of Graham Greene’s novel, The Quiet American, to investigate the late US capitalism and expansionism which have relied on its strong military, political, and economic power since the mid-twentieth century. First published in England in 1955, this novel was commercially successful, and over the years has achieved the status of a classic novel, with film adaptations in both 1958 and 2002. However, American readers were incensed upon its 1956 publication in the US, due to the novel’s negative portrayal of Americans as being naively idealistic and recklessly destructive. It is true, however, that this novel reveals how, since the dawn of the Cold War, US interventionism and exceptionalism have constantly been the transnational strategy to achieve Pax Americana, under the pretense of bringing democracy to dictatorships, eliminating terrorism, and liberating the oppressed in the Third World. Specifically, this paper examines this rather “biased,” yet simultaneously genuine novel regarding how US intervention in Vietnam from the 1950s through the 1970s played a role in embodying the US empire “the way we know it,” an heir to old European empires in the age of global capitalism. Ultimately, this paper shows the extent to which the US political agenda of the Cold War driven by American exceptionalism played out, creating an American empire distinct from its European counterparts.
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