Why I Live at the P.O.

Content Warning: This section of the guide references includes outdated and offensive language, including racist and misogynistic slurs that are replicated in this guide only in direct quotes of the source material.

Comedic in tone and centered around a multigenerational household of eccentric characters, Eudora Welty’s look at small-town Southern life in the 1940s is considered by many scholars to exemplify Southern Gothic literature, although Welty herself disdained the label. Scholar Ruth Weston argues that Welty better represents “escape fiction” with gothic landscapes rather than Southern Gothic, as Welty explores how women “escape” cultural and social limitations in a search for independence and individualization (Weston, Ruth. Gothic Traditions and Narrative Techniques in the Fiction of Eudora Welty, LSU Press, 1994). While Sister expresses a sense of satisfaction at the end of the story, the degree to which she actually escapes her circumstances is minimal.

The rural Mississippi setting plays an integral part of the story, as the story’s characters reflect a sense of being both isolated in and entrapped by small-town life. For instance, while Sister takes pride in her position as postmistress, that her tiny town has the second-smallest post office in the state of Mississippi is notable since the state is dotted with other small, rural towns. In fact, her primary customers and the town’s main residents consist of her own family members. Welty reinforces the setting through Southern dialect, providing additional detail and authenticity to the voices of the main characters. For instance, when Mama sees the child Stella-Rondo has brought home, Sister says, “she like to make her drop dead for a second” (41), using both dialect and colloquialism to illustrate Mama’s shock.

From the perspective of Sister, Welty employs efficient exposition from the story’s opening, as the first lines introduce the perspective of Sister, the story’s narrator and protagonist: “I was getting along fine with Mama, Papa-Daddy, and Uncle Rondo until my sister Stella-Rondo just separated from her husband and came back home again” (43). This sentence not only introduces the full cast of eccentric characters and the story’s inciting incident—Stella-Rondo’s marital separation and return to her family home—but also situates the story firmly within the control of Sister, whose perspective dominates the story as it unfolds through a dramatic monologue delivered from the post office where she’s spent five days. Sister’s control of the narration establishes the theme of Truth and Perception, as her tendency to hyperbolize and externalize blame calls her reliability into question.

The opening paragraph also establishes the story’s primary conflict, which centers around Sibling Rivalry as a Family Affair. One of Sister’s primary grievances with Stella-Rondo is her little sister’s “spoiled” nature and tendency to get what she wants, including Sister’s former lover, Mr. Whitaker. While Sister claims that Mr. Whitaker broke up with her because Stella-Rondo told him Sister was “one-sided”—likely referring to one breast being larger than the other—the text suggests that there is more to the story than Sister is considering, a trend that continues throughout the narrative. She is capable of focusing only on what she perceives as a great personal plight, thus highlighting a different facet of her “one-sided” nature.

Shirley-T.’s ambiguous parentage brings Sister’s jealousy of her sister to the fore: Sister remains convinced that Stella-Rondo indeed gave birth to the baby, and clues throughout the text, such as Mama’s comment that the baby is “too big” to be Stella-Rondo’s, suggest that the speed with which Stella-Rondo married and then separated implies that the baby was potentially conceived before her elopement, possibly while Sister was still seeing Mr. Whitaker. The sisters’ rivalry and Sister’s jealousy contribute to Sister’s refusal to accept, or drop, Stella-Rondo’s claim that her child is adopted. Notably, she never expresses a suspicion that Stella-Rondo may have conceived the child while Sister was still dating Mr. Whitaker.

Gender roles and expectations play a crucial role in the story’s conflict and the sisters’ dynamic. Mama accepts Stella-Rondo’s explanation that Shirley-T. is adopted, for instance, to help her avoid the social judgment of women’s sexuality and becoming pregnant (potentially) outside of marriage. Furthermore, Sister’s expressions of being put-upon by her sister’s and niece’s arrival are tied primarily to her traditionally domestic roles. In the first scene, she stands over a hot stove and fixates on how to get two chickens to feed five people, suggesting that the addition of a two-year-old—who would not eat a substantial portion—makes the task far more difficult. Later, during an argument with Stella-Rondo, she pickles green tomatoes that—it turns out—no one wants, saying “Somebody had to do it” (46). These scenes not only place Sister in traditionally domestic roles, but they highlight her increasingly hyperbolic complaints about her station, which stem from feeling overlooked and jealous upon her sister’s arrival.

The extended family structure includes the sisters’ maternal grandfather, Papa-Daddy, who plays a traditionally patriarchal role, demonstrated through a sulking demeanor and a commanding presence, indicated by the fact that he “l-a-y-s down his knife and fork” with emphasis when Stella-Rondo complains that Sister wished he’d cut off his beard (44). He further exerts his dominance when he responds by calling Sister a “hussy” and lets her know she only has her job at the post office because of his “influence with the government” (44). As Sister heads to the post office in the final pages, his position in the town as a type of patriarch is evidenced by the fact that some in the town will “quit buying stamps just to get on [his] right side” (52). In this way, Welty highlights the way that Papa-Daddy wields the small amount of power he holds, primarily over the women in his family.

Uncle Rondo, however, presents a different take on masculinity through a comical role as the sisters’ eccentric uncle whose hyperbole matches Sister’s. After consuming an unnamed “prescription” on the Fourth of July, he dons Stella-Rondo’s lingerie, a flesh-colored kimono, declaring himself “poisoned.” A man wearing women’s clothing would not have been accepted in WWII-era Mississippi, and Stella-Rondo states that he looks “a fool” and it makes her feel “sick to her stomach” (46). Having been emasculated by his nieces, he seeks revenge by tossing firecrackers into Sister’s room the following morning, thus furthering the rivalrous and antagonistic dynamic within the family.

While these scenes and characters are imbued with humor and hyperbole, they also reflect another convention of Southern Gothic literature through their exploration of alienation. Each character is pitted against each other in a man-against-man (or woman) conflict. Through her dominance of perspective, Sister plays for the reader’s pity, as she purports to have not only all the odds but all the other characters, stacked against her. She is known only by the moniker Sister, labeled by her family role. Sister is jilted by Mr. Whitaker, a rare outsider who visits the small town, only to watch her sister marry him and move away while gaining her family’s approval for doing so. Stella-Rondo also pits Papa-Daddy and Uncle Rondo against Sister. Sister notes that even “the baby” is “on Stella-Rondo’s side” (48), extending her jealousy to a small child. By the time Sister leaves for the post office, she has thoroughly addressed how each member of her family has turned against her. While her examples of persecution are exaggerated, they do illustrate a sense of alienation and lack of belonging within her family.

Building upon Sister’s perceived oppression, Welty’s work also highlights how marginalized people are silenced and oppressed, furthering the theme of Independence Versus Lack of Autonomy. The most demonstrable example within this story comes not from Sister, but through the Black characters, who are literally silenced, as none of them has a line of dialogue. Ironically, in a story with an independence theme, the Black characters in the story do not live lives of freedom. For instance, Sister uses a racist slur when she mentions that Mama gave their workers the holiday off, framing an act of benevolence with racist language. That this act is filtered through Sister—who bristles when she takes up the work the domestic laborers would typically perform—is notable. For one, it suggests that the family has the means to hire domestic help. Secondly, it highlights that Sister’s labor during the story is a departure from her usual routine. This dynamic with Black characters arises again when Sister is on the way to the post office and spots a Black girl with a wagon. Using a racist slur, Sister demands that the girl haul her belongings uphill to the post office. While proclaiming her own independence, Sister exploits a Black child. Through Sister’s attitudes toward Black people, Welty illustrates that while Sister faces a degree of oppression due to her gender, she also moves seamlessly into the role of oppressor within a society that devalued and discriminated against Black people.