Thomas Fowler Case

Thomas Fowler

Thomas Fowler, the narrator, a British war reporter is based in Saigon during the French-Vietnamese conflict. He is a keen observer of not only politics but the world around him. He is a pragmatic soul, a middle aged man and has a jaded and cynical world-weary attitude and takes pride in his detachment both from war and from life, and takes a deliberative stance to "not be involved" in the war that is desolating the country he deeply loves and respects...Vietnam.

Vietnam inspires Fowler, and stirs deep emotions, especially love, speaking in affection of the country's landscape in almost and poetic prise how there are "gold...rice fields" and the fishers fragile cranes hover over the fields like mosquitos" which clearly marks from his former cynicism and his self-depriving nature. Over the long period of time Fowler has spent in Vietnam he has become so attached to this war-ravaged country that he views it as his home which has "shifted eight thousand miles" from England to Vietnam.

Phuong presence, his unmarried partner, plays a major and vital role in Fowler's life and represents the possibility of such "permanence" and becomes a ...in Fowler's life; she is simply a part of him, soothing his tempered mind and his "insurance against old age." Nevertheless the robust presence of a young naïve man, Alden Pyle, shakes that very foundations that Fowler's life was built on, and consequently caused him to act against his principles for Phuong, finally admitting that he doesn't want to lose what he loves most. Pyle's actions are judged in black and white, justifying them as they are for the greater good, whilst in Fowler's case, Pyle's seems to only recognize the traditions vows of marriage as to strengthen the ideals of relationship and love for one another. Pyle's states that he "would never come between a man and his wife", therefore seeing as they aren't married it is acceptable to "come between" them which comes to Fowler, finally discovering that Pyle is too naïve to understand the diversity and complexity of a relationship.

The novel begins on a disillusioned note when the meaning of Phuong's name is revealed as Phoenix "but nothing nowadays...arises from the ashes." The Phoenix takes the image of the resurrected Christ, but resurrection will never take place for Fowler because for him there is no spiritual reality that may transcend death and conquer it. For Fowler death is "the absolute value" in his world. Fowler calls upon death because he discovers that the world is a kind of hell itself. This realisation causes him to feel a torturous sense of alienation and a profound malaise which is akin to a living death thus he proclaims "aren't we better off dead."

For Fowler, Opium abstracts human misery and smoking his pipe becomes his way of escaping his sordid world. His pipe "calms nerves and stills the emotions." This form of escape brings him closer to non-being and ultimately to his death.

For associates his atheism with his refusal to get involved. He constantly repeats that he is a "reporter", not a "leader writer" and refuses to take sides or to formulate opinion and as he only "speaks the truth." He states that "man invented God a being of capable understanding...God exists only for leader writers." We soon