Set at the time of the Cold War offensive and the threat of the domino theory in Asia, Graham Greene's fiction annexes his experiences as a war correspondent in Indochina during the years 1951. – 1954 in his works, transmit reasoning and voice to a world filled with contradictory values ​​and dangerous games. His novel The Quiet American (1955) transcends the increasing dehumanization of the fifties and sixties, 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 beneath good and evil, as well as the paradox of conflict. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay Presented as a parallel to the ignorant young soldiers of World War I, Pyle represents the humanities' search for gratification and purpose ("To do good, not to any individual but to a country, a continent, one world"), which inevitably results in harm both to himself and to those around him. This is expressed as "God always protects us...from the innocent and the good" and "We didn't even wait to see our victims struggling to survive, but we climbed up and went home." There is a feeling of disjunction between the actions taken and the person carrying them out; a lack of regret or understanding towards other human beings, which takes precedence in war; the “us versus them” analogy to put an end to the guilt. At its core, Greene professes the ignorance and estranged nature of humanity in the face of the evil and injustice it commits, while using such theories of good, evil, and morality in order to achieve a selfish levity towards others. In this gray world, currency is power, and the end goal is supremacy and security over others. This dehumanization is also signified through the symbolism of the Vietnamese people; just as they are caught between the two kingdoms of France and America, two great colonial powers, they are also caught between communism and capitalism, the innocent being impartial to their own fate; the pawns must be moved and moved for the bigger players (“…control them or eliminate them”), perhaps best expressed via the objectification of Phuong by the men who “love” him. She is a representation of the Japanese of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Jews of Germany and the true “quiet Americans” waiting for a bomb to fall on their heads at any moment. Indeed, the metaphor of the "meat" of our own flesh and the contrast between Saigon and its surroundings represent our capacity to abandon the innocent in a gray game, where without God all this is just a game, and where in ultimately wars are sustained not by a just cause ("legality was not essential in a country at war"), but by superiority and personal hope against unnecessary death, where good and evil are what will define us; easy but dangerous distractions. “We didn't want to be reminded how little we mattered, how quickly, easily and anonymously death came.” Thus, democracy at this time presents us with a conundrum; to act or not to act in an uncontrollable game. Perhaps, in some ways, the greatest folly is to act when harm or ineffectiveness is promised; however, the characterization of protagonist Thomas Fowler as an estranged party who "had judged like a journalist in terms of quantity and had betrayed [his] own principles", proved even that he was "disengaged" from being drawn into conflicts of others;..