Monday, May 21, 2012

The Quiet American - Blog # 2

Please respond to the following prompts in complete sentences.  Use quotes when required.


Ch. I
1.  Who is Pascal?  Why are his quotes used and how does he connect to this text?

2.  What is engage?


3.  What major event has happened without it being mentioned in Part Three, Ch. 1?

Ch. II
4.  What is the 3rd Force in Ch. 2?  Use a quote as support.

5.  Why are happy memories the worst?  Use a quote as support.

Ch. III
6.  Give 3 solid examples of American criticism from this chapter.

Ch. IV
7.  What eventually took Fowler's mind off Pyle and Phuong? Is this what war does for a population?

Ch. V
8. What deeply bothers Trouin about napalm?  What is napalm?  Use a quote as support.

9.  Compare Ch. V to All Quiet on the Western Front.  1 paragraph.

10.  Are only the French and Americans guilty in this war?


4 comments:

  1. 1. Pascal was a French mathematician, Catholic philosopher, etc. I think that Vigot uses his quotes because, like Pascal, he is Catholic, and deliberately uses them against the atheist Fowler. But Fowler is also able to use the one quote he remembered from Pascal, because Pascal was not only a physicist and an inventor, but also a writer, too. This might be the reason why both Vigot and Fowler can quote him.

    2. To be "committed", in French. When Vigot tells Fowler that he is "engagé" like everyone else, but Fowler responds that he is not engagé in religion.

    3. I wasn't really sure about this one since it's so indirect, but probably the explosion happened in the square that consisted the bicycle (set up by Pyle) and Fowler is later notified of this from Dominguez

    4. Fowler realizes that General The (with his army) would cause explosions such as the one with the bicycle, just for the sake of fighting. In actual fact, he could care less about the Third Force, because it may thwart the war. "It was better from their point of view to let people assume that the bombs were Communist" (Greene 143).

    5. He realizes that Phuong had left him for Pyle, since he sees the sheets on the bed changed, and notices that she had taken her dowry with her. Trying to eliminate the happy memories would make things "easier" for Fowler, because he knew he was old, and wouldn't be able to battle depressions so easily like he used to. "I began to plan the life I had still somehow to live and to remember memories in order somehow to eliminate them. Happy memories are the worst, and I tried to remember the unhappy. I had lived all this before… but I was so much older - I felt I had little energy left to reconstruct" (Greene 145).

    6. He criticizes the quiet American (Pyle), the American Legation for hiding Pyle from him, and the Church (calling it the "Church of Christ Scientist").

    7. Flying in the plane and watching the bomb hurl downwards. This gave him something that occupied his time, and for a little bit, he was able to forget about mostly Pyle. Fowler isn't the only person who has experienced this; many people who go to war often get to occupied with it that they forget about other things that were on their minds.

    8. The napalm bombing bothers Trouin. Napalm is a flammable jelly-like substance, made of thickened gasolines and special soaps, that is used in bombs and flamethrowers. " 'You see the forest catching fire… The poor devils are burned alive, the flames go over them like water. They are wet through with fire' " (Greene 151).

    9. Captain Trourin's way of thinking about war reminded me of how Paul thought about war as well. They both think that civilians romanticize warfare, and that in reality, it is way more brutal than anyone would imagine. When Trourin talks about the napalm bombing, he says: " 'I'm not fighting a colonial war. Do you think I'd do these things for the planters of Terre Rouge? … We are fighting all of your wars, but you leave us the guilt' " (Greene 151). Similar to this, Paul feels a lot of guilt when he kills another man during man-on-man combat, where he sees the face of his enemy. And although Trourin only drops bombs and doesn't really see those who die because of them, he still feels a huge sense of guilt, because you know that people have died because it was you that released the bomb.

    10. Aside America and France, I also think Britain is to blame as well, since at one point, they also helped France be reinstated as colonial rulers of Vietnam, with America alongside them. I inferred this from the book, mainly because of Fowler .

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  2. 1.Blaise Pascal was a French mathematician, physicist , inventor, writer and philosopher. Both Fowler and Vigot are able to quote Pascal, Vigot by using his religious association to Pascal’s works, and Fowler just using the philosophy in his quotes. Fowler is an atheist but is still able to find common belief with a religious man showing us how he is truly unbiased.
    2. Engage is French for “attracted” or “committed”. Fowler says he is not committed to religion “like the rest of us” as Vigot had said he was (Greene 130).
    3.I’m assuming the major event that wasn’t mentioned was “Operation Bicyclette” where Mr. Heng and Fowler witnessed the bicycle blow up the fountain in the public center.
    4. I found this a bit difficult to decipher, but I think in this chapter, Mr. Heng might be the third force because he is working with the bomb operation but he is also working with Fowler to get the publicity and rally going for a cause. He tries to get Fowler interested in it, Heng said he “hopes you [Fowler], were interested” to spread and let the cause be known (Greene 134).
    5. “Happy memories are the worst” because they make you remember the joy that you felt then but miss now (Greene 137). Fowler tried to “remember the unhappy” so that he would think of how terrible Phuong was and how much better he is now without the pain that those unhappy times with her may have caused him (Greene 137). Now that she left him, he needs a coping mechanism and remembering how wonderful she was doesn’t help so instead he tries to make a bad image of her to think of how much better off he is without her.

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  3. 6. Fowler criticises America by criticising Pyle and generalizing him to all Americans, Joe in particular. Fowler says that Joe “called boisterously” to him which may be Greene’s subtle way of calling Americans loud and noisy (Greene 138). Greene also mentions how Joe, the American, doesn’t bother to make an effort to remember a Vietnamese coworker’s name (Ms. Hei), instead Joe says he calls her “Hi, there!” and that “she likes it” as though she were some animal, pointing out the disrespect that Americans tend to show (Greene 183). Fowler yells at Joe that Pyle, and American, has “taken my girl” talking about how Americans are dishonorable in respecting relationships (Greene 138).
    7. Fowler forgets about the situation with Phuong and Pyle when he is flying his plane, dropping bombs. The situation he is in is so much more immediate but with an obvious path of action rather than the Phuong and Pyle situation because Fowler hasn’t a clue as to what he should do about out. War tears loved ones apart and sometimes that love has to be rebuilt rather than just going off from where they started. War becomes an immediate and unignorable distraction.
    8. Napalm is a material used in fire bombs. Trouin is bothered by napalm because “the first time I dropped napalm I thought, this is the village where I was born”, he was using it to destroy his childhood home for some cause (Greene 143). He was using napalm to destroy something that had a great sentimental value for him.
    9.Both Paul and Captain Trouin think that people think of war as something bigger, heroic and more beautiful than it really is. Paul thinks about the French guy who he had to sit and watch die from the wound that he inflicted on him and how terrible of a think it really was. Paul knew the French guy was just like him and deserved to live just as much as he did. Captain Trouin thinks in the same way, thinking about all the people he is killing and in his case they may be people he knows personally. Both protagonists think about the people they are taking lives from and how terrible war really is and how people romanticize the ugly battle into something beautiful.
    10. Yes I would say that America and France as well as Great Britain are to blame in this war. I believe there is always a better solution than war. Vietnam didn’t want communism for communism they wanted communism to eat. So maybe America could have come in and helped solve their reasons for communism rather than joined in on the war. I doubt they all would have been able to fight if their stomachs had been full.

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  4. 7. Fowler was occupied by the flying plane that dropped bombs, which lead him to not think about Pyle as much as possible. He is distracted and out of order with Pyle and Phuong at the time, and the war was only a distraction to his feelings towards both of them.
    8. Napalm I the material used for making bombs. Napalm has been the key of destruction off something sentimental to Trouin.
    9. They both are in a war like situation, more so there are people who think that war is amazing and something all men should go through. At the same time Trouin thinks that this is for a cause and this is the best for all. Those who make it worth the war are the ones who are the hero, in other sense both main characters thinks that war is a useless tool. War is there only to kill one another and now to justify peace.
    10. Yes and No, since I think the French, Americans and Britain would be the one to blame. But at the same time the fear of communism, caused them to react this way. It’s all a domino effect. So, in general this wouldn’t of happened if Vietnam, didn’t adopt communism.

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