Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Ugly American, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The Failure of the American Foreign Service
Communism vs. Capitalism
Grassroots Development
Self-Interested Philanthropy
Racism and Cultural Insensitivity
Summary
Analysis
Homer Atkins and his wife, Emma, move to Sarkhan two weeks later, settling into a small cottage in Haidho with dirt floors and a charcoal fireplace. Emma learns Sarkhanese and befriends the neighbors while Homer works on his design for a “man-powered water pump.” Currently, Sarkhanese villagers must haul water from rivers by pail, all the way up the terraced hillsides to their rice paddies. The process is exhausting and time-consuming with very limited returns, but the Sarkhanese have always carried water this way. Homer realizes that the only way to get the Sarkhanese to change is to show them a more efficient, readily available alternative.
Homer and Emma model ideal grassroots development, demonstrating how American Foreign Service workers can have a truly positive impact in other countries and bolster America’s international reputation. Rather than building costly dams or roads, Homer focuses on an everyday problem that can be met with a practical solution, thus providing a much more tangible benefit to Sarkhanese villagers than a military road ever could.
Themes
Although Emma suggests he could simply import the pieces he needs, Homer only wants to design his pump out of readily available parts that villagers can obtain themselves. He uses bamboo for piping and sources most of the components from old jeeps, which litter the countryside. Emma suggests that he use a bicycle mechanism to supply power, since many people in Sarkhan ride bikes. Homer excitedly realizes Emma is right. He works on his design late into the night, drinking beer and chattering excitedly to his wife. Emma looks proudly at him, utterly happy, since he is happy.
Homer’s insistence on building his pump out of locally available pieces makes his task more difficult but ultimately ensures that other villagers will be able to build their own pumps with materials they can acquire themselves. This demonstrates the importance of designing sustainability into any new development, so that the recipients are not dependent on foreign imports. Homer and Emma’s happiness suggests that helping other can bring satisfaction and joy, even though they don’t live in a luxurious mansion with servants.
Themes
Two days later, Homer finishes his design. Emma advises that he must let the Sarkhanese use his water pump in their own way, otherwise they won’t take ownership of the idea. She counsels him on how to bring his idea to the villagers. The next day, according to Emma’s plan, Homer Atkins drives his jeep into a small, destitute village called Chang ‘Dong and asks to speak with the headman. Atkins explains his water pump design to the old man in Sarkhanese, and though he struggles with the language, the headman is touched by the effort.
Emma wisely observes that the Sarkhanese villagers must use the pump as they see fit before they will truly adopt the idea and make it a part of their lives. This suggests that if a foreign developer simply brings in a new idea and tries to force it on the local people, it will not take root, since the local people will not see it as theirs, but only as something a foreigner thrust upon them.
Themes
Atkins explains that he is an American inventor and asks the headman who the best mechanic in the village is. Atkins wants to employ him and pay him a good wage, and if the mechanic can help with his water pump design, Atkins will make him an equal business partner. After negotiating an initial wage, the headman leaves and brings back a short, stocky Sarkhanese man named Jeepo (because he fixes jeeps). Jeepo is “ugly,” and Atkins immediately likes him. Jeepo explains the depth of his mechanical experience, which is considerable, but he also admits that he does not understand all machines.
Jeepo shares Atkins’s symbolic ugliness, which according to the logic of the book signifies that he is practical, unassuming, and works with his hands. Jeepo’s admission that he understands most machines, but not all of them, suggests that he is honest and frank and does not oversell his abilities.
Themes
Get the entire The Ugly American LitChart as a printable PDF.
Atkins watches as Jeepo assembles the first pump that afternoon, with the village elders watching on. They connect 25 feet of bamboo pipe together and feed it down a hill and into the river at the bottom. Bicycle pedals connect to a series of pistons that will draw the water up the pipe and into the paddy next to them. Jeepo climbs on and begins pedaling, and water draws up the pipe and gushes into the paddy. The village elders are thrilled, but Atkins can see that Jeepo is not satisfied. Jeepo states that it is a “very clever machine,” but not practical for use in Sarkhan. Most families only have the money to afford one bicycle, which they need for transportation and thus cannot take their bicycle apart to build a water pump.
Jeepo’s practical insight into the water pump’s flaws demonstrates how important having a local partner is. As a member of the village, Jeepo understands the villagers’ practical limitations and needs far better than Atkins ever could, which thus allows them to design a pump that is optimally suited to helping the villagers. Jeepo’s practicality contrasts with the village elders’ initial excitement, depicting him as a pragmatic and symbolically ugly individual.
Themes
Atkins briefly feels angry, but he then grins and asks Jeepo what he would do to make the water pump viable for Sarkhanese villagers. Jeepo spends a long time staring at the bicycle, thinking. He and Atkins discuss ideas until dusk when Jeepo figures out a solution: rather than generating energy by turning pedals that are built into the machine, they will generate energy by turning a small treadmill, which the family bicycle can be temporarily mounted on and used to generate energy. Each family can thus power their water pump and keep their needed bicycle intact.
Jeepo comes up with a more practical solution than Atkins does, again demonstrating the value of developing alongside local people who are intimately aware of the problem at hand and what solutions would actually be viable. Moreover, Jeepo proves himself to be as effective a designer as Atkins—if not an even better one—implying that just because someone comes from a developing country does not make them any less adept or efficient than a Westerner from a developed country.
Themes
Atkins tells the village elders that Jeepo has made a great contribution to the project and proposes that he and Jeepo become equal business partners. Two of the elders doubts that any white man will work as hard as Jeepo, but Jeepo tells them that Atkins is obviously different than most white men. Jeepo declares he will become Atkins’s business partner, and that they will not patent their invention, so any Sarkhanese person can learn how to build their water pump and distribute it themselves. The headman draws up a legal contract for them. Jeepo and Atkins set immediately to work. They rent an old warehouse and hire 12 workers, buy used tools and supplies, and form The Jeepo-Atkins Company, Limited.
Jeepo’s recognition that Atkins is not like most white men suggests that honest, humble American developers can start to mend some of the damage done by white people who historically exploited people in developing nations. Jeepo and Atkins’s decision to not patent their invention but make it available to anyone who can build it contradicts the French attitude toward new inventions, demonstrating that Atkins and Jeepo care more about helping the villagers than about profiting themselves.
Themes
As they develop their water pump further, Jeepo and Atkins often erupt into shouting matches. The other Sarkhanese people enjoy watching them bicker, since they’ve never seen a Sarkhanese person fully express themselves against a white person without fearing retribution and with the chance of changing his mind. Emma moves all of their belongings from Haidho into Chang ‘Dong and sets up their new home there, and starts cooking meals for all of the company’s workers. At one point, an advisor from the American Embassy arrives and asks Atkins to give up his work. He thinks that letting Sarkhanese people see a white person work with his hands “lower[s] the reputation of all white men.” Plus, the French never even “allowed natives to handle machinery.” Atkins promptly sends the man away.
Like Father Finian’s relationship with his Burmese friends, Atkins’s and Jeepo’s relationship is marked by equality. The villagers’ enjoyment of watching Jeepo argue with Atkins, knowing that Jeepo may change Atkins’s mind, suggests that equal relationships such as this one help mend the historical hostility and division between nations and people groups. Despite all their good progress, the American advisor’s belief that Atkins lowers the reputation of all white people by working with his hands suggests that many white people still think of themselves as racially superior to the Sarkhanese.
Themes
After six weeks, the company has built 23 pumps. Jeepo and Atkins explain to their workers that now they must set out and sell their machines to nearby villages, and each man will earn a commission on whatever he sells. The workers set off with their demonstration pumps. No one returns for four days, and Jeepo and Atkins grow nervous. On the fifth day, their first salesmen returns, having already sold his two pumps and taken orders for eight more. The village celebrates, and Jeepo and Atkins return to work early the next morning.
Jeepo and Atkins not only create income for themselves, but also create opportunities for their employees to earn additional income through commissions. This demonstrates the way that effective grassroots development can not only lead to new innovations, but to new local industries as well, encouraging commerce and trade in underdeveloped areas.
Themes
