Set during the Cold War offensive and the threat of the domino theory in Asia, Graham Greene's fiction combines his experiences as a war correspondent in Indochina during the years 1951 – 1954 in his works, impart reasoning and voice to a world full of conflicting values ​​and dangerous games. His novel The Quiet American (1955) replaces the growing dehumanization of the 1950s and 1960s, in which the characterization of Alden Pyle as the ignorant face of democracy presents the conundrum of action versus inaction. Greene thus explores the realms of gray beyond good and evil, and the paradox of conflict. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Presented as a parallel to the ignorant young soldiers of World War I, Pyle represents humanity's search for gratification and purpose ("To do good, not to every single person except to a country, a continent, a world ”) inevitably ending with harm to both himself and those around him. This is expressed through “God always save us… from the innocent and the good,” and “We didn't even wait to see our victims struggling to survive, but we got on and went home.” There is a sense of disjunction between the actions taken and the person taking them; a lack of remorse or understanding towards other human beings, which takes precedence in war; “us versus them” analogy to stop the guilt trip Basically, Greene professes humanity's ignorance and removed nature of the harm and injustice it commits, while using such theories of good, evil, and morality to the end. to achieve a selfish lightness towards others. In this gray world, currency is power and the ultimate goal is supremacy and security over others. This dehumanization is further depicted through the symbolism of the Vietnamese people; just as they are trapped between the French and American kingdoms, two great colonial powers, so they too are trapped between communism and capitalism, innocents impartial to their own destiny; the pawns for the bigger players to move and move (“…control them or eliminate them”), perhaps best expressed through the objectification of Phuong by the men who “love” her. It is a representation of the Japanese in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Jews in Germany, and the real “quiet Americans” waiting at any moment for a bomb to fall on their heads. Indeed, the metaphor of the “flesh” of our own flesh and the contrast between Saigon and its surroundings represents our ability to abandon the innocent in a gray game, where without God all this is simply a game, and where ultimately wars they are not supported by a just cause (“the rule of law was not essential in a country at war”), but by superiority and personal hope against a useless death, where good and evil are what will define us; easy, but dangerous distractions. “We didn't want to be reminded of how little we mattered, how quickly, simply and anonymously death came.” In this way, democracy in this time presents us with a conundrum; to act or not to act in an uncontrollable game. Perhaps in some respects the greatest folly is to act when damage or ineffectiveness is promised; however, the characterization of the protagonist Thomas Fowler as a detached party who “had judged like a journalist in terms of quantity and had betrayed [his own] principles,” demonstrated that even “disengaged” we are drawn into the conflicts of others; inaction in itself is an act in the great game, in Fowler's case to escape violence and.