Blog 8 S.S

“Madagacar Plum" is a short story regarding a captain in the South Vietnamese Army. The narrator of this story is similar to some of the other pieces of literature we have read. In “The Sorrow of War” the narrator was an alcoholic and at times his reliability had to be questioned. There are a few reasons that make the narrator of "Madagascar Plum" unreliable. First, the narrator kills an innocent child because he believes that she killed two soldiers in his unit. Second, the narrator is an alcoholic. Lastly the narrator suffers from PTSD which makes him highly unstable and difficult to tell a reliable story. The narrator is an alcoholic, which makes him unreliable. . This implies that he tells a story from an Alcoholic point of view which is often different from a sober point of view. At the start of the story, he says, "Pour me another drink, and when I've finished it, I'll tell you the story" (1). The narrator will not start the story until he finishes his drink. For example, on the cold rainy night when the small child disappears the two of the men in the narrator’s unit Phong and Nam set out to find her because the narrator is too drunk to go on his own. "The longer I remained inside, the more I lapsed into a stupor and the foggier I became" (6). The narrator says that his memory is foggy, proving that he is unreliable. Later in the story we learn the narrator kills the small child because he believes the small child killed his men. This type of reasoning is completely illogical because it is unlikely that a small child would be able to kill two soldiers. The narrator decides to execute the child because she would not confess that she killed the two men. A few minutes after the execution, the men return and the narrator immediately realizes that the execution was a wrong decision. Although it is possible for a child to kill an adult however it is illogical to think that a small child could have killed two soldiers. This proves that the alcohol had ruined the narrator’s ability to reason and makes wise decisions thus makes him unreliable. The narrator is also unreliable because he lacks emotional stability since he suffers from PTSD. One could argue that soldiers cannot show emotions because it shows a sign of weakness. Although the narrator realized that his decision to kill the small child was wrong however he does not stay to bury the child’s body.