The narrator in Ngoc's "The Madagascar Plum" is a former officer of the Sai Gon army who tells of the source of his post-traumatic stress. Throughout the time when he tells his story, the narrator is drinking at a cafe in an attempt to get drunk. In the story itself, the veteran frequently recounts events in which he drank heavily or was already intoxicated. This short story establishes clearly that the narrator is an alcoholic and a victim of post-traumatic stress disorder. The narrator should be considered unreliable in the sense that his story may contain several factual inaccuracies due to his current state of mind, but he should not be ignored completely because much can be learned from his story.
Although it is fair to assume that his alcoholism may result in embellishment of some of the content in his tale, it is important to note that the narrator comments several times on how he remembers the climax of his story vividly. For example, after putting out the flame on the wick of the explosives, he states, "I still remember the feeling, Brother, as if it were printed on my mind." The narrator's comment reflects his current intellectual and emotional state due to the effects of PTSD. Due to his condition, he is able to relive this traumatic experience through flashbacks and memories. At the end of the his narrative, the retired officer describes the stress he endures many years after the war. He says, "The browning shadow of the small child has stayed with me until now. It never stops pressing on my chest and clinging to my neck and throat." Neither alcoholism nor age deters the narrator from recalling the series of events that took place during the days retold in the story; their utterly traumatic nature caused them to be forever burned into his memory. In a way, the narrator's PTSD allows him to be reliable when retelling the events of his story.
The narrator also exhibits reliability in the manner in which he portrays himself and his soldiers. In telling his story, he could have presented himself and his platoon as heroic men of honor and dignity who fought valiantly through and through, but he speaks very genuinely of both. In speaking truthfully of himself and his men, he depicts them in a negative light due to the content of his stories. He is honest about the rate at which he consumed alcohol despite the fact that he could come across as an irresponsible drunkard. He tells, "The night that if I hadn't been under the devilish influence of alcohol wouldn't have turned out the way it did. But if I wanted to rely on excuses, there'd be plenty of choices." In other words, the narrator states that although he is not trying to make excuses for himself, he did not act prudently due to his own poor choice of consuming alcohol. He later describes in detail the acts of tieing the little girl up to explosives, lighting the fuse, and realizing later that the girl had done nothing to harm his soldiers. The narrator also explains his interactions with the girl's blind, emaciated mother who was left searching for her daughter. After seeing this woman, he says, "Ashamed, my men quietly lowered the noses of their rifles and withdrew from the two emaxiated and starving 'enemy.'" The narrator tells of the horrible things his men did despite the fact that it offered no personal benefit to any of them or himself. He could have left out the scenes that did not convey a favorable image, but instead, he told of all of them.
Although it is clear the narrator suffers from both alcoholism and post-traumatic stress disorder, he is reliable in the manner in which he presents the messages and themes of his story. It is not fair to say that due to the fact that he has PTSD, his memories are so incoherent that he cannot retell any of them clearly. On the other hand, the curse of his condition is the vivid memories and ghosts he lives with every day. Given that the narrator is reliable in this way, his story can be interpreted as a means for enlightening others of the atrocities both sides in a war succumb to because of the level of stress they are forced to endure daily. In addition, the story gives the reader insight into some of the things that truly take place in wars despite the glossy portrayal that governments frequently give them.
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