The Quiet American Portfolio

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Question #4
Suspense is created throughout the novel, primarily with the use of the flashbacks. The novel starts of with the main question of “Who killed Alden Pyle?” Pyle is already dead within the first scene of the movie, which is in the present. Fowler and Phuong are both waiting on Pyle to arrive in their home, but he never does. This is how the story is created, because from this point on, the audience is trying to solve the murder case.
The novel’s plot then flashes back and forth from the present into the past. The flashbacks are crucial to the development of the plot, because they show instances when Pyle is alive, thus developing the relationship between Fowler and Pyle. The conflict, such as the love triangle between Phuong, Pyle, and Fowler, are created using the flashbacks. Other conflicts arise in the flashbacks, like the instances when Fowler and Pyle disagree on democracy and what needs to be addressed in Vietnam. These conflicts revert back to the main question that needs to be solved, and that is the murder of Alden Pyle.
Suspense rises constantly through...

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