Character Analysis: The Ugly American

To make the character Winston Smith, the main protagonist from the book 1984, complex, George Orwell had to give his character multiple traits to keep Winston from being another boring, vague, and 2-dimensional character. Winston is a complex character because he undergoes emotional changes throughout the book, he has a variety of personality traits to drive the plot, and he has significant interactions with other characters throughout 1984.

The book The Ugly American clearly demonstrates several of the established Special Operations Force (SOF) imperatives outlined in ADRP 6-22. As a Special Forces soldier I can relate these imperatives to stories illustrated in the book and apply them to real life situations that I have experienced in the field. The Ugly American is a goldmine of wisdom and a handbook for special warfare. All Special Operations soldiers should read it.

“Hey Brianna, meet me at 12:00 a.m. in the cafeteria so we can discuss what happened in class today.

The next character I will mention is Honorable Gilbert MacWhite, who replaced Ambassador Sears in Sarkhan. This character functioned in complete contrast to Sears. He understood the sensitivity of the US mission in Sarkhan and how vulnerable the Sarkhanese government was to potential communist influences. He also understood the communist threat and did not underestimate it. MacWhite’s understanding of the operational environment was clear from the beginning and made constant efforts in understanding the people of Sarkhan.

The U.S. Constitution provides power to the President and Congress to develop and enact national security policy (Ulrich, 1). As such our civilian leaders have the right and responsibility to maintain oversight of the military. Two civil-military relations theories, Normal and Clausewitzian, offer competing views. The Normal theory suggests officers are professionals and interference from civilian leaders is inappropriate (Cohen, 4). The Clausewitzian theory contends the statesman may inject himself in any aspect of military strategy since

The notion of an American way of war informs how scholars, policymakers, and strategists understand how Americans fight. A way of war—defined as a society’s cultural preferences for waging war—is not static. Change can occur as a result of important cultural events, often in the form of traumatic experiences or major social transformations. A way of war is therefore the malleable product of culturally significant past experiences. Reflecting several underlying cultural ideals, the current American way of war consists of three primary tenets—the desire for moral clarity, the primacy of technology, and the centrality of scientific management systems—which combine to create a preference for decisive, large-scale conventional wars with clear objectives and an aversion to morally ambiguous low-intensity conflicts that is relevant to planners because it helps them address American strategic vulnerabilities.

In A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide, Samantha Powers writes that the US is “extremely slow to muster the imagination needed to reckon with evil.” Powers’ comments are particularly relevant to U.S. policy during the turbulent 1990s and more recently in Syria when the U.S. policymakers chose not to deploy military capability to prevent mass atrocities. Since Powers’ seminal work, the U.S. Army’s Command and General Staff College (CGSC) located at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, has taken on the challenge to educate military officers with 10 to 12 years of military experience in the prevention of and response to mass atrocities (MARO). My paper will discuss how international agreements such as the Responsibility to Protect, the Genocide

The Ugly American is a novel that showcases the contrast between virtuosity and deplorability in American diplomacy. Through characters like Father Finnian and Colonel Hillandale the epitome of effective diplomatic efforts are displayed. With kindness, understanding of the Asian people, and a deep compulsion to help these men did more to contain communism and to bring aid to the people of Southeast Asia, specifically In “Sarkhan” than the whole of the American government. However, characters such as Lou Sears and Joe Bing displayed the ostentatious and self-serving nature of American diplomats overseas. Lou and Joe did close to nothing to hinder the spread of communism, and even less to aid the Sarkhanese.

Finian learned the language and physically prepared his body by eating the native food and developing immunity to the bacteria in the food. In Burma, he recruited a Burmese man, U Tien. Father Finian had to vet U Tien, and put him through some tests to make certain of his loyalty and prove he was not a communist. Once he was satisfied that U Tien was loyal, they began their work together. Finian worked through U Tien to recruit other loyal Burmese men to form his group of Nine Friends. Father Finian did not tell them what he wanted; instead, he asked the men to decide what was important to them and talked to them about their views on communism. Finian was able to influence the men by having them realize and believe in the cause they were going

American Beauty is the 1999 film directed by Sam Mendes and written by Alan Ball. Lester Burnham, the main character in the story and a depressed husband and father, has a midlife crisis after becoming infatuated with his daughter’s friend, Angela. I found the narrative of American Beauty fascinating because it portrayed such an interesting take on the ethics of American culture, specifically the depiction of the suburban family. American Beauty is not only about a grown man’s fantasy with his daughter’s cheer mate, but more about yearning after youth, respect and power. Everybody has a certain part of themselves that they have lost touch with or never developed a relationship with at all. The characters in the film don’t understand why these things aren’t right in their life and have difficulty with trying to cope with a wide range of emotions. Yes, Lester’s thoughts about Angela throughout the movie are impure but not perverted. He just wants to do what men are suppose to do with the most beautiful woman he has ever seen. “There are many connecting themes in American Beauty. Through plot, characterization, and cinematography these themes

All the American characters in the book have some kind of American identity. The unnamed American represents a stereotying American. Jim and Wainwright are economical fundamentalist. The friends Changez goes to Greece with and Erica's parents treat others with arrogance and superiority. The person who insults Changez... Changez's colleagues who look at his beard with fear... Even Erica is a self centered character. They symbolize different faces of America that Changez is criticizing. However, not every American is arrogant or selfish, but the author didn't mention any. While he structured the book, he made it looks like that all the American should be guilty for what their country have done. In this way, his prejudice and injustic to America

In Burma, 1962, a dictator, U Ne Win, carried out a coup d’état, or an “overtake”, of the ruling government party. U Ne Win introduced the Revolutionary Council of the Union of Burma, whose members

Burmese Days was one of George Orwell’s first books, and the intro states that “As a policeman in Burma, George Orwell saw the underbelly of the empire; not the triumphant bugles or bejewelled Maharajas, but the drunken sahibs pickled by heat and alcohol in mildewed clubs, the scarred and screaming Burmese in their prison cells” (Orwell Reader 2). The described Burma sounds repulsive and unappealing. George Orwell must have seen Burma in a very different light after working as a policeman. George Orwell always described himself as somewhat of a loner. Burmese Days speaks about George’s situation as “Unable to share his views with the enthusiastic empire builders around him, he retreated like John Flory, the main protagonist of Burmese Days ‘to live silent, alone consoling oneself in secret, sterile worlds.’”. (Orwell Reader 2). The social life of “John Flory” was very oppressive and there were many unspoken rules he had to follow. One such piece of evidence that supports this is in (Burmese Days 20) “Flory had been fifteen years in Burma, and in Burma one learned not to set oneself against public opinion”. He could be referring to his opinion against the empire. That seems to be the only thing he would want to hide from the public. The citizens of Burma stuck to themselves and in Burma, there was “A comforting theory that sticking to one’s job was the truest patriotism”. (Burmese Days 21) This sounds like the logic of an oppressed people, just laying low and doing what you

Britain’s connections to Burma go a long way back, all the way back to the first Anglo-Burmese war which was fought in the mid-1820s. It was then and there that Burma was subjected to the colonial rule of the British, and the lives of its people were forever changed. The rich became poorer, the middle class became poorer and the poor, needless to say became the poorest. The British intruded and forced themselves into the Burmese people’s lives with clear intent, they wanted to give the people of Burma something to look forward to by spreading their message of Hope, Civilization and Modernization.

As a relatively young country (in recent independence) only gaining its independence from Great Britain in 1948, Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, has been crippled by the influence of its extensive colonial history . The various governments in Myanmar’s independence thus far, often run on empty promises and heavy artillery, have done little good for the country. The military forces in Myanmar have grown tremendously to the detriment of both prodemocracy leaders as well as the country’s population as a whole . Any attempted uprising in the country is quickly met with brute force as seen in the recent failed Saffron Revolution . The focus of the government on the growth of military power to the neglect of social and economic prosperity has