Blog 8-RR

In "Madagascar Plum", a former officer in the Sai Gon army tells the reader a story that relates to why he has PTSD. He tells the reader about a young girl who was found near the military camp, and comes to stay with the troop to assist the cook, Mr. Bay. They find that every night she sneaks out of camp with a bit of food, and returns before morning. The officer believes that the young girl is feeding the enemy, and becomes suspicious. He sends multiple troops out, and after unsuccessful searches, offers to go out himself. Two of his soldiers offer to go instead because the officer is drunk. The two soldiers don't return, but the girl does. The officer believes that the girl killed his soldiers, and starts to question her. He strapped explosives onto the young girl because she refused to talk, and blew her up. Momentarily after, his two soldiers returned to camp, and the officer realized he had made a grave mistake.

The story itself may have seemed a bit far-fetched, but could be somewhat true. However, we learn that the officer is a self-proclaimed alcoholic, which delegitimizes his recollection of the story. Also, he refuses to tell the bartender the story until after he's finished his drink. It seems that the officer would not have been able to tell the story sober for fear that he may have remorse for what he did. Alcohol is a way to prevent him from having to remember everything and feel sorrow. We see this in many examples of soldiers with PTSD; the soldiers drink away their traumatic experiences, anger, and sorrow to try to forget it all.

Another instance of his unreliability was in the camp with his two soldiers drinking whiskey. His two soldiers left to find the young girl, and the officer said that he continued to drink wine until he became foggy. This shows that based on his recollection, he isn't even sure what he was drinking. Based on this information, I do not believe that the narrator was reliable.

Another reason the narrator was not reliable is because of what happened at the very end of the story. It seems like the narrator is in a park now, looking at light posts, describing to the reader how they remind him of a lotus. In the last sentence, a woman asks the narrator if the village he spoke of in Vietnam was a village in the Central Highlands. This shows that he may not have even been inside a bar to begin with, and that he was talking to himself in the park, while drunk, about this event with the young girl that happened while he was fighting in the war. His cup of whiskey rolled onto the ground, glimmering in the moonlight. This is another reason why I do not think that the narrator was reliable.