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Shayvonne Parker Instructor’s Name ENG 336: The Short Story 30 April 2017 Critical Literary Analysis of Characterization in Why I Live at the P.O. by Eudora Welty Right off the bat, in the short story Why I Live at the P.O., the characters were explained to be in current disagreement with the narrator because of her sister’s arrival. Sister is the nameless narrator of the story and her lack of a name may represent the minimal recognition she received from her family compared to her younger sister, Stella-Rondo. Stella-Rondo was blamed the most for her actions throughout the story, even though the issues arose after Sister began making accusations about Stella-Rondo’s allegedly adopted daughter, Shirley T. Sister and Stella-Rondo’s relationship objectifies how a disastrous sibling rivalry and miscommunication can agent dysfunctions and break up an entire family. Stella-Rondo’s mere existence appeared to have been a burden on Sister for years. Sister placed Stella-Rondo in the category of ungrateful and she explained how Stella-Rondo eventually ‘threw away’ everything that she initially showed interest in. The idealistic bond shared between many sisters is much less like the bond shared between Sister and Stella-Rondo, which would explain their constant bickering. The fact that Sister and Stella-Rondo were exactly a year apart and shared a birthday represented that Sister had been living in Stella-Rondo’s shadow since she was born and overlooked because of Stella-Rondo’s greater need for attention. This caused Sister to resent Stella-Rondo and that contributes to the bitterness and sarcasm

shown on Sister’s behalf. Even still, she was confident in her decision to move out of her family’s home and into the post office. Sister took advantage of every opportunity to ridicule Stella-Rondo about how she carried herself, references to her recent split with her with her husband, and even went as far as accusing her of lying about her child being adopted. Sister’s accusations seemed to have made StellaRondo agitated enough to seek revenge on her sister. Sister did not take partial blame in any of these situations, nor did she ever really consider things from another perspective. This gives her the title of an ‘unreliable narrator’ because no other characters’ personal thoughts or feelings were accessed other than those of Sister. She could have overlooked and disregarded a great deal of relevant factors that probably would have made her appear less innocent. Sister could have even distorted random portions of the story at her own request. Of course, there are endless possibilities to whether the event played out exactly like she said in the story because that is the only version of the story that is provided to the readers, but Sister gives the audience many reasons not to trust her since she is biased. Each of characters’ relationship with Sister was compromised in ways like the ‘slippery slope’ concept. She and Papa-Daddy’s encounter was the first in the slippery slope and it was rather simple for Stella-Rondo to convince him of Sister’s alleged betrayal. Stella-Rondo’s claims of Sister bringing forth the idea of him cutting off his beard was triggered when she made her first accusation that Shirley T. must be blood related and not adopted due to her resemblance to Papa-Daddy had he cut his beard off. Sister seemed too sure that Shirley T. was not adopted and had she asked in a more respectful way, or not at all, Stella-Rondo might not have reacted the way she did. This is what gives the audience a chance to ponder who is in fact to blame for the start of it all. It was easier for Stella-Rondo to tell her family that Shirley T. was adopted than

it would be to say try to explain why she has a two-year-old child that no one in the family knew about. She was praised by Papa-Daddy and Mama for moving away but she may have had no intentions to return home which is why no one initially knew of Shirley T’s existence. The next on the slippery slope was Sister and Mama’s relationship. Mama was not in favor of Sister badmouthing Stella-Rondo in any way and would have defended her to the death, right or wrong, or so it seemed. Sister’s first claim was rather bold, but she seemed to excuse it because she claimed that the child looked like Papa-Daddy and Mr. Whitaker. The second accusation regarding Shirley T. was Sister’s concern for whether she could talk or not. At this point, it seemed that Sister was only trying to upset Stella-Rondo because she was insinuating that she’s at the age where should be able to talk and if she could not, there must be something wrong with her. Adopted or not, that is enough to offend the mother of any child. As a surprise, Mama took all the offense for Sister’s accusations against Shirley T. and Stella-Rondo and demanded that she apologize to them both. Stella-Rondo showed little interest in the fact that Sister did not believe that Shirley T. could talk because she expected nothing less from her at that point in the story. Sister’s unapologetic attitude toward her sister and niece further supports her bitterness and reason for her constant efforts of finding fault in Stella-Rondo since she returned home. If anyone dared to refer to jealousy of Stella-Rondo on Sister’s behalf, it would be Mama. When Sister claimed that she would not receive the same treatment that Stella-Rondo is receiving for her choices that she had made, but Mama admitted to her that she would in fact receive the same treatment from her as Stella-Rondo did but also reminded Sister that she was not in StellaRondo’s position so it is pointless to even be concerned about it. Mama’s lack of suspicion for why Stella-Rondo returned home with an unexpected child was proof enough that there is a lack of communication within this family and Sister is the only one concerned enough to question her

sister. Sister failed to realize that she was adding fuel to the fire the more she decided to bash Stella-Rondo because Mama’s defense mechanisms always surface when she hears Sister say anything negative about Stella-Rondo. The last relationship destroyed on the ‘slippery slope’ is the one between Sister and Uncle Rondo. This one is the most significant since Sister thought she would be able to save him from being coerced by Stella-Rondo’s lies since she and him had an issue in the past. Uncle Rondo was initially able to dodge Papa-Daddy’s attempt to turn him against Sister but that was only because he could not concentrate on the content of their conversation because Papa-Daddy distracted him while he was swinging in his hammock. Sister was not as fortunate to have Uncle Rondo distracted when Stella-Rondo approached him unexpectedly about Sister allegedly calling him foolish-looking while wearing Stella-Rondo’s kimono. Uncle Rondo’s one-track mind prevented him from recalling that Stella-Rondo was the one that turned Papa-Daddy against Sister and realizing that she was trying to do the same thing with him and Sister. The very thing that helped Sister earlier in the story when Papa-Daddy was unsuccessful in turning Uncle Rondo against her is the same thing that hurt her in the end when trying to explain herself to Uncle Rondo: his one-track mind. Sister mentioned that she thought Uncle Rondo had the brains in the family which is contradictory to what others thought of him and his one-track mind. It is likely that the only reason Sister said that was because he gave her Stella-Rondo’s radio after she had wronged him. Sister felt as if she “won him over” through all these years because of that but she was sadly mistaken when Uncle Rondo was informed of what Sister “said” about him and he lost his temper to the point of no return. Lying and deceit should never be the answer but that seemed to be Stella-Rondo’s go-to behavior when she felt the need to get back at her Sister in the story. Sister made some rather

steep accusations about Stella-Rondo and even if she was right about everything she said about Stella-Rondo, she was the only one who saw bad in her and everyone else saw the good. Sister was outnumbered from the start and she had known that for years and that is why she was unsupportive of her return home. Papa-Daddy, Mama, and Uncle Rondo were all blinded by Stella-Rondo’s charm at some point in the story and in their eyes, she could do no wrong. Sisters’ multiple cries for help did not grasp the attention of any of her family members and this made her feel helpless and turn to drastic measures to spite her family. The back-and-forth demand for attention had been going on for years between Sister and Stella-Rondo and it clearly had given Sister a run for money this last time as she refused to diminish her pride to plead with her family members any longer. Sister must have longed for a better relationship with her family members because even after revealing that she was leaving to live at the post office, she told her family the only way they would be able to see or hear from her would be to visit her at the post office. Uncle Rondo rushed Sister to leave immediately while she steadily tried to explain her reasons for leaving so suddenly. After she realized that her family members will go to the lengths of discontinuing their use of the mail system just to spite her, she knew that her family will never be the same. This gave her satisfaction to have “won” in the aspect of walking away with pride but in reality, she is isolating herself from her family at the post office.

Works Cited Gioia, Dana, and R. S. Gwynn. The art of the short story. New York: Pearson Longman, 2006. Print....