Blog 9 JCP

Nguyen thi Minh Ngoc's "The Madagascar Plum" reccounts the cause of a former Sai Gon military officer's post-traumatic stress disorder. The officer tells the story of the girl he killed, who he know thinks of when he sees madagascar plums because of its similarity in color to the skin of the girl.

I would say that the narrator is unreliable for multiple reasons. First off he clearly copes with his PTSD by drinking. Throughout the story the narrator is becoming more and more intoxicated further clouding his thoughts. The narrator says things such as "The longer I remaiend inside, the more I lepsed into a stupor and the fogier I became" (6),"The night that if I hadn't been under the devilish influence of alcohol wouldn't have turned out the way it did" (5) "Pour me another drink, and when I've finished it, I'll tell you the story" (1) or "My wife nags me that I'm an alcoholic" (8). Clearly his alcoholism resulting from PTSD effects his reliability in that although he may still have memories they are precieved differently when under the influence.

Secondly, there is the question that Tim Obrien raises; is there such thing as a true war story? The narrator himself had said "We are lucky I made those reporters stay behind - If I hadn't they'd have exposed the naked truth about the tales we inflate for our news from the battlefield" (2). Everything in was is over exaggerate, and differs from one perspective to another. Although I would not say the narrator is lying about his story, I would not count him as a reliable narrator to depict an unbiased history of the event. If he is willing to embellish their stories to reporters, then he will easily embellish when talking war stories with friends.

Finally I would say he is unreliable narrator because he does suffer from PTSD. His mind will no longer work in a chronological order just as Kien's did not in the Sorrow of War. As a result of the PTSD his memories will quickly jump when triggered by certain things. When the waitress brought out the plum the narrator turned pale, he even compared himself to a women reminded of a miscarriage. He describes it saying "The plum's brownish hue is so similar to the tones in the complexion of that impudent child" (1). As a result of the war his memory can hinge on things such as the plum and could possible leave out other things that aren't as imprinted in his memory.

Characterizing the narrator as unreliable made me look at the story a different way. Instead of taking it as a historical account of the events of the death of the girl, I looked at it as the personal experience of a soldier at war. I believe if a different soldier told that same story it would be different, yet can shoulder the same weight. These stories are not to tell the reader about what happened in Vietnam, but they are to show how the war is still affecting the soldiers now.