Madagascar Plum, written by Nguyen thi Minh Ngoc is about a soldier in the Saigon Army who is affected by PTSD. This story takes place in a cafe, where he re-tells of his experiences from the war, in particular, a child he killed in combat.
Throughout this story, the reader is left to figure out whether the narrator is a reliable source. After completing the story, it's quite obvious that he is not. The main reason I found was his alcoholism. Like most war vets, the narrator has turned to alcohol to deal with the horrors of war. In the second paragraph he says, "Pour me another drink, and when I’ve finished it, I’ll tell you the story. It's just that the plum's brownish hue is so similar to the tones in the complexion of that impudent child." (pg 1) we can see that he feels bad about what happened to the child, but he doesn’t dwell on it, rather he turns to alcohol so that he forget about it. It seems as if he's trying to drink away all the memories that he has of the war.
The second reason I feel as if the narrator is not reliable is his lack of detail. He rarely goes into much detail about any one event. He briefly mentions what happened and then moves on. In some of the other novels we've read, the author goes into so much detail that the reader almost feels like they are there. I did not feel this way with this story. The narrator also suffers from severe PTSD. His PTSD causes him to mutilate his own body, as we see on page 8. This goes to show just how irrational and untrustworthy he is. This gives me little faith in the stories that he tells.
After taking into consideration these three points, I came to the conclusion that the narrator is not a reliable source in the slightest. He is constantly drinking so he most likely views the world and everything that is taking place, a lot differently than those who are sober. Because there is very little detail, it makes me think that this is more a work of fiction and that he was not actually present during the events in the story.
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