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Why I Live at the P.O. | Introduction

Eudora Welty’s ‘‘Why I Live at the P.O.’’ was inspired by a lady ironing in the back room of a small rural post office who Welty glimpsed while working as publicity photographer in the mid-1930s. Wetly had just started to write, and the story, which appeared in Atlantic magazine in 1941, was among the first she published. It was also included in her first collection of short stories, A Curtain of Green, which appeared that same year. Though Welty writes in many different styles and moods, ‘‘Why I Live at the P.O.’’ is representative of her masterful evocation of vital, idiosyncratic southern speech. Both dark and hilarious, ‘‘Why I Live at the P.O.’’ is one of Welty’s most beloved stories and one of her own favorites. Throughout her long career she has frequently chosen it when invited to read from her work.

‘‘Why I Live at the P.O.’’ takes the form of a dramatic monologue. Sister, the first-person narrator, tells her side of the family spat that has led her to leave the family home where she had lived into adulthood and move into the local post office. She appeals to the reader to take her side as she indignantly recounts her younger sister’s unjust maneuvers in turning the rest of the family against her, but her self-pity and exaggeration render her position unintentionally humorous. Though the story is comic, its underlying themes are complex, concerning the tensions between family affiliation and independence, the relative nature of truth, and the insularity and uniqueness of life in a small southern community.

Why I Live at the P.O. Summary

The events of ‘‘Why I Live at the P.O.’’ are set in motion when Stella-Rondo, the narrator’s sister, returns to the family home in China Grove, Mississippi. The narrator, known as Sister, claims that up to this point she has gotten along well with her mother, uncle and grandfather. Sister has a competitive and contentious relationship with Stella-Rondo, and her return sets off a chain of petty family arguments that serve to explain why Sister has moved out and now lives at the local post office.

It is the Fourth of July. Stella Rondo has left her husband, Mr. Whitaker, a man Sister had once dated, and brings home a daughter, a two-year-old child named Shirley T. The family did not know of Shirley T.’s existence, and her age suggests that she was conceived before the marriage took place. Stella-Rondo explains that Shirley T. is adopted, which everyone accepts except for Sister. Sister claims that the child looks like Papa-Daddy, their maternal grandfather, with his beard cut off. At lunch that day Stella-Ronda tells Papa-Daddy that Sister thinks he should cut off his beard. This is something he would never do, so Papa-Daddy gets angry with Sister and implies that she is ungrateful to him for using his influence in the community to get her a job at the post office. The sisters squabble about what Sister had really said, and their mother takes Stella-Rondo’s side. The conversation ends when Shirley T. throws up.

After dinner Papa-Daddy goes out to his hammock to sleep and Uncle Rondo—Sister and Stella-Rondo’s uncle—who is drunk, appears in the hall wearing a kimono that had been a gift to Stella-Rondo from Mr. Whitaker. He goes downstairs to talk to Papa-Daddy who, according to Sister, tries to turn Uncle Rondo against her, but he is too drunk to listen. Stella-Rondo notices Uncle Rondo in... » Complete Why I Live at the P.O. Summary