The Sympathizer

Dualities—in people, places, things, and ideas—are omnipresent in The Sympathizer. The unnamed narrator, the “man of two minds,” has an identity that is a composite of multiple, often “opposing” dualities. “Opposing,” here, is in quotation marks to emphasize the subjective nature of this term. As with the Chair of the Oriental Studies Department, false dichotomies of “Orient” and “Occident” can be imposed on the narrator, due to others’ misconceptions surrounding his mixed race heritage. As a spy, the narrator is both Communist and anti-Communist; he is both Eastern (the half-Vietnamese side from his mother) and Western (the half-French side from his father); he is both hero and antihero.

The theme of duality helps the reader reach another understanding: that contradictory messages are often closest to the truth. Throughout The Sympathizer, the more paradoxical a statement, the more the narrator praises said statement as being truthful. Conversely, things that are straightforward—e.g. the single-minded vision of the Commandant with Communism or the narrator’s father with Catholicism—are usually corruptand/or wrong. The narrator sees contradictory duality, even in the most mundane details: “A woman’s cleavage perfectly illustrated this double and contradictory meaning, the breasts two separate entities with one identity” (241).