Neutrality In Fowler's The Quiet American

In the novel, The Quiet American, the main character, Fowler, claims to be neutral throughout his whole life. With the help of his opium addiction, Fowler tends to put himself in the role of a journalist and to only provide the facts. Any statement tainted by opinion, Fowler disregards. Fowler attempts to take no action and have no opinion. This degree of objectivity although desirable for Fowler brings into question its practicality. Objectivity may be impractical due to the emotional nature of humans. And yet could be practical if someone were to be cautious about the bias in their statements. The problem here is not about whether someone could think only unbiased thoughts, but whether they could function daily.
The first scene we should

examine is Fowler’s response to Pyle’s actions. Fowler seems to make an emotional response to Pyle’s actions because he deems them wrong. An emotional response would be inconsistent with Fowler’s claim of objectivity. Since we know that Fowler wants to prevent Pyle’s actions, we see that Fowler can not be neutral due to his unconscious bias. Fowler illustrates this unconscious bias through his description of Pyle without having once spoken to him “Pyle was quiet, he seemed modest, that first day I had to lean forward to catch what he was saying. And he was very, very serious” (23) “He seemed incapable of harm” (17) Thus, we see that Fowler made this inference about Pyle’s character without any grounds. The unconscious bias proves so far, that one can not think as objective as Fowler desires. We see these types of inferences to be an instinct in people, even when we know nothing about someone. The next paragraph goes into depth about a different scene. In this scene, Fowler is inside a tower with two armed men. The Viets, enemies of the Americans, discover Fowler and Pyle are inside the tower. Fowler and Pyle try to make it down the tower before they both get killed.
While Fowler is heading down the ladder, Fowler gets a feeling of fright. Fowler envisions eyes glaring up at him from the bottom of the ladder. Fowler then senses someone shaking the ladder, so then out of fear, Fowler jumps. Only to find out there was no one shaking the ladder. Fear is an instinctive feeling that saves one from troubles. Although fear may result in something bad, the feeling itself has that purpose. “The ladder shook and shook and I imagined I saw its eyes glaring upwards. Suddenly I couldn’t bear it no longer and I jumped and there was nothing there...” (107). In the next scene, we then get to see Fowler's sympathy. This began when Fowler was sitting at a pavilion. Two young ladies then get up from their table, soon after comes an explosion. Fowler rushes to the incident, but not as an observer, but as someone in distress. Fowler looks around and sees Pyle. Fowler tries to make Pyle come to realization of all the damage he has caused. In this dialogue between Fowler and Pyle, Fowler lashes out his emotions towards Pyle. Fowler looks everywhere to make sure Phuong, his lover, is safe. At at a time like this, when someone loves someone, they go immediately looking for that person. Usually, when someone is just a bystander, that person analyzes the danger risks, before immediately heading towards the explosion. For example, someone who is being chased by a serial killer would be reluctant to help a stranger. Yet replace the stranger with one's own son, and it's instinctive to help. “I forced him, with my hand on his shoulder, to look around. I said, ‘This is the hour when the place is always full of women and children--it’s the shopping hour. Why choose that of all hours?” (162) Fowler in this quote shows concern for the women and children victimized by the incident. And referencing to Fowler’s first instinct, looking for Phuong, his instinct was out of love. Although Fowler denies this.
It is normal for someone to be this subjective. Fowler expresses his emotions for Phuong. Fowler cries after he finds out Phuong had packed her things and moved out to live with Pyle. Fowler storms into where Pyle works and ends up weeping in the restroom. Crying in this scene is an expression of sorrow. Fowler’s weeping demonstrates a public expression of emotions. This weeping scene is an instance of Fowler’s mental grief, turning into physical tears. “I went in and locked the door and sitting with my head against the cold wall I cried. I hadn’t cried until now” (147) Fowler tries to divorce his, at the time but estranged, wife in order to marry Phuong. This desperate act further proves that Fowler loves Phuong. In addition to the weeping scene, this act proves that Fowler can not be as objective as he claims. Not only mentally, but physically. This is evidence of public emotional responses to be a part of human nature, regardless of what we desire. Upon reading Fowler’s plea letter to his wife one can see the genuine sincerity in it. Phuong meant something to Fowler which provoked his bias towards her and marriage means something to Fowler. Fowler wants to further his relationship with Phuong. Fowler never brings up the monetary benefits of marriage but shows his intentions to be out of love. Fowler throughout the novel, becomes more of an opinion columnist as opposed to someone who reports just the facts. The next paragraph, it is more revolved around the motive behind Fowler's engagement. Fowler loves Phuong, he wants to have her in his life, so he goes to the length of murdering Pyle. Fowler gets involved as one of the actors in this incident as opposed to reporting it. And as an observer, one wouldn’t interfere with the things going on in the course of life. The reporter records what goes on, but even a reporter selects which type of information goes into the article. Maintaining the analogy, the reporter picks what he subjectively deems worthy enough.
Fowler makes the sympathetic choice of killing Pyle, considering how many people Pyle has killed.

Fowler engages himself into various situations contrary to neutrality. “I took no action--even an opinion is a kind of action” (28) Fowler names two things which would contradict the neutral character stance. Considering these two things, action and opinion, Fowler breaks the first rule about having an opinion. This is demonstrated with him loving Phuong, but he also breaks the rule about not being involved. This is seen in the next paragraph. The main situation Fowler gets involved in is this whole war against Pyle. Fowler not getting involved would have resulted in Pyle not being murdered. Fowler keeps telling himself that he’s neutral, after clear situations in which there is subjectivity. It’s a delusion that Fowler tries to live. Fowler furthers this with his opium use which makes him less emotionally responsive. But this does not absolutely rid him of his instinctive subjective feelings. A reporter reports the crime scene, but Fowler is literally being investigated because of his ties to Pyle. Fowler is considered a suspect, and as the readers know, is actually the character who planned the attack. Planning this attack is a clear sign of involvement, and we know this to be out of

emotion.
In conclusion, we have examined different scenes to solve this question of how practical it is to be this subjective. There is the practicality of being mentally unbiased, and how one could function in society while being publicly objective. There have been two possible answers to this problem, one being this degree of objectivity is not possible because it’s in our nature to be emotional. And the other answer could have been that we can be cautious enough about our actions to maintain the facade of unbiased. However, there still remains the question of whether this one sample is enough to fulfill the burden.