Victoria Tretyakova
Group 316
Alden Pyle in “The Quiet American”
To begin with, I would like to say that if to talk about The Quiet American, one of the most famous novels by Graham Green, it is impossible not to mention one of the main characters – Alden Pyle. This patriotic, innocent and naive character should be paid attention to.
Alden Pyle came from a well-respected family. His father has appeared on the cover of Times magazine as a renowned professor of underwater erosion and his mother is well respected in their East Coast community. Pyle himself is a brilliant Harvard graduate who came to Vietnam brimming with the ideas of York Harding, an American foreign policy theorist who proposed that a Third Force is needed to control the spread of communism in Vietnam. Pyle starts out as a young, innocent, and easy-to-love character, but as the story reveals, his naivety becomes dangerous as he started to mess around with forces he did not quite understand.