Thomas Fowler is an English journalist living in Vietnam. He reports on the war between the French colonial forces and the Viet Minh communists. His experience of the war and his worldview have been influenced by his job as a reporter. He outwardly insists—loudly and repeatedly—that he is a cynical, jaded man who is detached from the world. He hopes that if he repeats this mantra to himself enough times, the world will believe it. He refuses to take sides in the conflict, preferring to remain detached and noncommittal. Fowler’s cynical worldview can be summed up by his tendency to view everything—including imagined reports of his own early demise—in the form of how many lines they will take up in a newspaper report, if any.

Inwardly, however, Fowler’s cynicism is a form of self-defense against his increasing feelings of isolation and old age. By not investing emotionally in ideas or people, he avoids the risk of being hurt by disappointment or abandonment. Yet Fowler has hurt other people, particularly women with whom he has had failed relationships, as his wife, Helen, reveals. The common thread in all these relationships is that he ends up alone, reinforcing his inability to connect with others.