ENG328Y1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 39: Exoticism

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11 May 2018
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The Quiet American
Valorised atheist narrator with a death wish
Love story, adventure story
Lonely and dangerous journey down a river to a place perceived as an
underworld
Wins the hand of the heroine
Romance skewed and deconstructed
Hero is murdered
Thomas is flung back
But Pyle isn't a hero and Thomas isn't a villain
Opium smoking
Blissful forgetfulness of being
Exoticism
Romantic distance from Vietnam
Romanticism of the tower
First power symbol
War tower, bell tower
He's inside the picture, not looking from the outside
The canal is full of bodies
Annihilated landscape, not full of bodies this time
I ceased for those seconds to exist
Silence gives way to speech
Illusion that their conversation has transformed the tower into
somewhere more comfortable
Fowler has found his invisible enemy
Or his invisible enemy has found him
Mr. Chou is an opium addict whose memory is debilitating
“Mr. Chou cleared his throat, but it was only for an immense
expectoration into a tin spittoon decorated with pink blooms. The baby
rolled up and down among the tea-dregs and the cat leaped from a
cardboard box on to a suitcase.”
Sheer physical beauty of Vietnam
shift from random murder back to picturesque landscape
Almost as if he has committed murder himself
Ritual inevitability of the sacrifice of innocence
No choice but to identify himself with the killers as well as the victims
Sooner or later he must choose sides
Themes of assent and dissent
Own sense of guilt works against his sense of a new world being discovered
Gone on to lead what can only be described as a charmed life
“Must I too have my foot thrust in the mess of life before I saw the
pain?”
Fowler's consciousness as Judas shifts us away from a happy ending
Tragic brutality vs. romantic resolution
Lecture 39
Monday, March 13, 2017
2:12 PM
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Document Summary

Lonely and dangerous journey down a river to a place perceived as an underworld. But pyle isn"t a hero and thomas isn"t a villain. He"s inside the picture, not looking from the outside. Annihilated landscape, not full of bodies this time. Illusion that their conversation has transformed the tower into somewhere more comfortable. Mr. chou is an opium addict whose memory is debilitating. Chou cleared his throat, but it was only for an immense expectoration into a tin spittoon decorated with pink blooms. The baby rolled up and down among the tea-dregs and the cat leaped from a cardboard box on to a suitcase. Sheer physical beauty of vietnam shift from random murder back to picturesque landscape. Almost as if he has committed murder himself. No choice but to identify himself with the killers as well as the victims. Own sense of guilt works against his sense of a new world being discovered.

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