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
Fifty years before Louis Sears is Ambassador, the American government buys thousands of acres of unused land in Sarkhan. The soil is hard and bare and remains unused until 1947, when the American government lends it to the Sarkhanese air force as a training area. The Sarkhanese government spends several years and millions of dollars improving the land, which raises its property value and causes suburbs to appear around it until it is the most valuable real estate in the country. During Sears’s tenure as ambassador, an anti-American newspaper claims that the Americans are going to evict the Sarkhanese air force off of the land and sell it to real estate agents, thus ruining Sarkhan’s investment.
Although the Americans claim to be helping Sarkhan develop as a country and rise economically, such rumors suggest that the American government actively undermines the Sarkhanese government whenever they can make a profit. Broadly, this suggests that American philanthropy (charitable aid) is self-interested. Although America claims to want to help others, such actions reveal that it is primarily interested in benefitting itself, even if that means exploiting other countries in the process.
Themes
The American Embassy does nothing to combat these rumors, so an American editor who runs an English newspaper resolves to handle the rumor himself. He gathers the Sarkhanese editors of several local newspapers and goes to Ambassador Sears’s office so Sears can tell them the rumors are untrue. However, when they confront Sears, he sits uncomfortably and says he has “no comment.” After the Sarkhanese editors leave, stunned, the American editor screams at Sears that he practically confirmed the rumor to be true. Sears says he doesn’t know whether it’s true or not, and he hasn’t bothered to check.
Sears’s refusal to deny the rumor suggests that it is true. Even if it isn’t, Sears’s incompetence and failure to confirm or deny the rumor makes it appear true to the Sarkhanese press. This demonstrates how diplomatic incompetence and unpreparedness can damage other nations’ perception of America’s behavior, undermining its international reputation and making it seem untrustworthy.
Themes
Dexter Peterson sends a cable to Louis Sears to inform him that a position as a federal judge waits for him in America, and he will be replaced by a man named Gilbert MacWhite. Sears throws a massive party. He then refuses to offer any aid to Father Finian, advises the State Department not to allow John Colvin to return to Sarkhan, and writes a long letter listing his own accomplishments and claiming that Sarkhan is more loyal to America now than it has ever been.
Once again, Sears praises his own incompetence and undermines Finian and Colvin, both of whom are intelligent, effective, and committed American workers. This suggests that in its current state, the American Foreign Service is not only unproductive but counterproductive to producing real and impactful change.
Themes
